


Across The Ocean Wild & Wide

by easilydistractedbyfanfic



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Childhood Friends, Day At The Beach, F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, Fields of Athenry by Paddy Reilly is my fave, Finn & Murphy are friends because yep I do make the rules, I listened to oh so many of my fave Irish songs during the writing of this story, Implied Sexual Content, In case you were wondering, Ireland, Maybe Fairy Tales Really Can Come True, MerMay, Mermaids, Mild Sexual Content, Oh you want a snug little cottage in Ireland?, Romance, mermaid au, yeah me too, yes I know it's not May but this is probably the only mermaid fic I'll write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:27:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27783718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/easilydistractedbyfanfic/pseuds/easilydistractedbyfanfic
Summary: The memories start with a slow trickle shortly before the plane lands, the lush green of the country far below him all the more beautiful after the near-endless views of deep indigo waves, and by the time the hired car crests another rolling hill on the narrow, winding road, the scent of the sea wafts in through the open windows and the memories rush through him until he feels like he’s seven years old again.Despite all the odds against it and a stretch of twenty-five years, John Murphy has returned to Ireland at last.A romantic Raven/Murphy mermaid AUBased on a prompt via t100 Fic For BLM
Relationships: Finn Collins & John Murphy, John Murphy/Raven Reyes
Comments: 34
Kudos: 42
Collections: The t100 Writers for BLM Initiative





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hopskipaway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopskipaway/gifts).



> There's a fantastic collection going on with writers & creators in the t100 fandom who are accepting prompts for Black Lives Matter causes. Click on the collection linked above to read a lot more stories, and click on the following link to read more about the guidelines & how to submit a request of your own! [Check out the carrd here!](https://t100fic-for-blm.carrd.co)
> 
> I received a prompt from a wonderful friend, reader & fanfic writer in her own right, and she asked for a romantic, summery mermaid AU featuring my favorite pairing. How could I resist? Hopskipaway, I sincerely hope this lives up to your expectations, especially since it has been a long while in the making!
> 
> Much appreciation and a special shout-out to @aadmelioraa on tumblr for the wonderful moodboard to accompany this fic! Thank god you took this on & put up with me, and it turned out just perfect!

* * *

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/170152452@N02/50662149882/in/dateposted-public/)

* * *

_We were born before the wind_

_Also younger than the sun_

_‘Ere the bonnie boat was won_

_As we sailed into the mystic_

_Hark, now hear the sailors cry_

_Smell the sea and feel the sky_

_Let your soul and spirit fly_

_Into the mystic_

~ Into The Mystic, Van Morrison

The memories start with a slow trickle shortly before the plane lands, the lush green of the country far below him all the more beautiful after the near-endless views of deep indigo waves, and by the time the hired car crests another rolling hill on the narrow, winding road, the scent of the sea wafts in through the open windows and the memories rush through him until he feels like he’s seven years old again. 

Despite all the odds against it and a stretch of twenty-five years, John Murphy has returned to Ireland at last. 

* * *

“I remember your da, Alex, and you as a little boy the summer you came to visit,” the friendly, bordering-on-hyper woman the agency hired smiles at him, bustling through the tiny kitchen as she shows him where she put the groceries and how to work the stove, though he has to listen carefully to fully comprehend the accent. 

“Your grandparents were always so proud of their American son and his family, god rest them. It’ll be nice to have a Murphy in this cottage again, instead of seasonal renters. I’ve gone and stocked you up on essentials, and if you have any questions, my number is posted by the phone. Most everyone in the village knows you were comin’, and a fair handful of them have read your stories as well, so I expect you’ll have some visitors or they’ll be buying you a pint down at the pub.”

It’s dizzying, trying to keep up with her, and some of his exhaustion must be showing when she glances at him again, her face showing pity as she fills up a shiny kettle at the sink. 

“All the travel has you a bit wrecked, I expect. I’ll put some tea on first, and then I’ll be on my way. You call now, Mr. Murphy, especially when it’s time for the washing, and otherwise I’ll come to tidy up and do some cooking every Tuesday. My wages are paid through the summer, so put me to use!” 

“Thank you, Mrs. Donovan. I appreciate all your help.” 

She hurries out with a jaunty wave, and for the first time since he arrived at the airport in Denver for the flight to Cork, there's a blessed silence that Murphy doesn’t feel the need to fill once the door closes behind her. It had thrown him, the mention of his father, and he collapses appreciatively into a chair at the sturdy kitchen table, overwhelmed with everything that’s happened so quickly. 

His mother was dead, had finally killed herself with the drinking, and it wasn’t until the lawyer had given him a copy of her will that he had realized the cottage in Ireland had gone to her in a trust after his grandparents died, and then to him when she passed. Murphy had only visited just the once, when he was seven, but he remembers the faded floral wallpaper in the living room, the gate that still squeaks at the front walk, and this same scarred wooden table he’s leaning on. The cottage had belonged to his father's parents, and his dad had often captivated him with stories of childhood summers spent in County Cork, full of magic and mischief. 

He’d loved it here too, just like his father before him, and his grandparents had been thrilled to have them both for that one memorable season. Murphy hadn’t known it at the time, but they’d come because of his mother’s drinking. She’d checked herself into rehab the spring of that year and Alex had taken the opportunity to bring Murphy for the first - and only - time. After that, things had gotten better at home in Denver for a while, and his grandparents had come to the states to visit during the holidays, at least until his father died unexpectedly almost two years later and his mother started drinking again. And never stopped. 

The cottage has been closed in the winter and rented every summer since his mother had owned it, he supposed, recalling the conversation he’d had with the overseas real estate agency when he’d first contacted them months ago. He’d put a stop to them making it available this summer, deciding he wanted to come back one last time to see the place before he sold it. What’s he going to do with a cottage in Ireland, especially one practically in the middle of nowhere?

Not that his life in Denver has him tied down, really. He can write anywhere. 

The kettle on the stove whistles and he gets up to take it off the heat. The first time he ever had tea was here, when his grandmother had served him some in a chipped mug, cloudy with milk and a heaping spoonful of sugar at this exact same kitchen table. He knows if he runs his fingertips along the curved edge, he’ll feel the letters JSM carved into the underside. John Seamus Murphy. His father had been angry when he’d been caught sitting beneath that table all those years ago, carving the spidery letters with one of his grandmother’s butter knives. But his grandfather, the Seamus he’d been named for, had only laughed and he hadn’t been punished after all. 

It had been a good feeling, knowing his grandparents had wanted him to have this place. For so long he had simply believed that he’d been abandoned by them after the death of his father, but now he realizes his mother had probably poisoned that relationship like she had most everything else. Murphy sighs, looking out the kitchen window, beyond the back garden where he fought imaginary battles with swords made of sticks and far past the stone wall he’d try to jump over, his eyes drawn to the windswept Celtic Sea as his head overflows again with memories. 

Maybe tea is exactly what he needs. 

* * *

It takes him a week to get settled in, to reacquaint himself with the house and get past the first spate of visitors. Mrs. Donovan had been right - every day someone new was knocking on the door, looking for gossip or to ask him to autograph a book or two, but ultimately most everyone ends up regaling him with stories about his grandparents, about his father and even one or two about him. Anybody who read anything about the Irish knew they were fond of their stories, but even he’s impressed at their ability to recall so many encounters from long ago. 

He learns to make the tea himself, preferring it now without milk or sugar, and though the three bedrooms have changed a bit with some updated furniture and artwork adorning the walls, the living room, dining room and kitchen remain much the same. The third step from the top of the stairs still creaks, the painting of the tall ship is still over the stone fireplace, and the small bedroom he used to sleep in is still navy blue and cozy with its built-in bunk beds. Sleeping on the top bunk had been such a thrill for him, and he used to convince his dad to sometimes sleep on the bottom one, like they were having a sleepover with just the two of them. Now that he’s grown, the appeal of the bunk bed wasn’t as strong, so he’d chosen the largest bedroom, the one his grandparents had slept in. There’s a new queen-sized bed there now, and it’s sunny and bright and when he’d taken the framed photo out of his suitcase and set it on the dresser, it had felt like a kind of closure, a sort of circle being completed. The photograph was taken that long-ago summer, his grandparents, his dad and himself at seven, all gangly and missing teeth. They were posed in front of the cottage and he doesn’t remember who took the picture but they all look so happy, so carefree. It’s the first thing he sees every morning and the frame appears at home on the aged wooden dresser next to a fancy glass jar filled with intricate shells, and somehow he starts to feel like he’s at home too as the days pass by in a lazy blur. 

Although the house embraces him, familiar and comfortable like a favorite warm blanket, the garden is in a pitiful state, all uneven grass and ugly mulch to cut down on weeding, especially when compared to his memories of the flowers his grandmother Kathleen used to grow all along the stone fence on either side of the gate. Only her favorite climbing yellow rose remains against the house, curving up and over the sun-bleached green front door, quaint and fragrant. Murphy turns his head away from the rest of the front yard every time he leaves the house, determined to remember the way it _should_ look instead, and maybe the lore of Ireland is affecting him, but he’d like to think his grandmother had a hand in keeping that rose alive, at least, since he knows it’s more than twenty-five years old. 

Maybe before the summer is through, he’ll make the yard look more appealing for a sales notice, but this morning he wants to follow the old dirt path at the back, the one that will still hopefully lead to the craggy shoreline that he used to love having adventures on no matter the weather. How many hours he spent digging and burying treasure under the sand he couldn’t begin to guess, but every picture he’s seen both in his head and printed out from that Irish summer shows him with a sunburn across his nose and cheeks. It’s mostly sunny when he starts out after breakfast, the wind picking up every now and again, and he makes sure to grab a sturdy bucket, a flashlight and a bottle of water before he leaves, anticipating that he’ll check out some of the coves and crevices along the rocky coast. 

Murphy spends half the day exploring, not ready to walk back up the steep climb until his stomach is growling for some of the stew Mrs. Donovan left for him in the fridge. He’s been poking around one of the deeper, narrow crevices in the cliffs, where the water surges in from the waves behind him, and he’s about to turn back when a discordant splash farther inside gets his attention. Curiosity piqued, he sticks to the edges of the tall rock wall at his back and carefully makes his way farther into the hidden niche, wondering if he might spot a seal if he’s lucky. There’s something there for sure, in the murky pool of water at the far end, and as he gets closer, he can hardly believe what’s in front of him. 

A woman, head barely above the surface of the water, is looking at him with wide, frightened eyes when the beam of his flashlight hits her. He’s speechless at first, never once considering a _person_ might have caused the splash he heard, and it takes him a few moments to find his voice even as he moves nearer to where she is. 

“Are you okay? It’s not safe to swim in here! Did you lose your flashlight?” 

He hasn’t noticed any supplies on any of the rocks, and his own flashlight barely illuminates the moody darkness surrounding her. Has she been in here, alone in the oppressive dark for long? Just the thought unsettles him, and he’s not normally one to panic. But the coves along the shore are dangerous, and anyone coming into them should know that. 

“I’m fine,” the woman says, clearly hesitant. She looks away from him, taking a deep breath before her dark eyes meet his again, full of caution. “I’m stuck though. I..fell in, and when I was trying to get out, a rock dislodged and my...foot...is caught underneath it. Can you help me?”

It registers with him that her explanation is dubious, that even _she_ doesn’t sound quite convinced by what she’s saying, but it doesn’t really matter, not when she’s right in front of him with her chin barely above water and no one in their right mind would be taking a swim in this treacherous, rocky cleft in the cliffs where the tide comes in quickly and the waves can be unpredictable. 

Murphy’s already nodding while tugging off his boots, the only answer he can possibly give her spilling out of his lips in spite of his doubts over her story. “Of course, yeah. Lemme take off a few things first. You must be freezing! How long ago did you fall in?”

“I’ve been in just a little while,” she says, though her eyes dart away again when he pulls his shirt over his head. 

The water is chilly here in the cool shade of the rocks, he knows that, but he doesn’t think her lips look too pale, so maybe she’s gotten lucky that he came along quickly. Propping his flashlight against the stones so it won’t roll away, he tries to angle it towards her as best he can. It isn’t waterproof, so he won’t be able to use it underwater and will have to rely on his sense of touch to get the rock off her foot rather than his eyesight. Even if she has only been in the water a little while, they’re both going to be cold when he hauls her out, so he leaves his shirt and his pants on the rocks next to his boots so they’ll have something dry afterwards at least, and he slips into the water in just his boxer briefs. The temperature is a shock against his skin even with the mental preparation for it, but he swims quickly over to her in the gloomy, flickering shadows, adrenaline churning through him. 

He couldn’t get a good look before, what with him skirting the edges of the pool while she was in it, but even in the faint glow of his flashlight, this close she’s unquestionably beautiful, her olive complexion almost luminous even with dark, wet strands of hair clinging to her cheeks. 

“Don’t worry,” he assures her, treading water and trying in vain not to stare. “I’ll get you out.”

She nods at him, expression serious. “The rock is very heavy. I’ll go underwater too - I think it will take both of us to get it off me. I already know the position, so take my hand and I’ll guide you down and put your fingers on it.”

Her fingers break the surface of the water, outstretched towards him in invitation. When he encloses her hand in his, a tremor jolts through him but there’s no time to think about it, not when she’s already sinking below the water and pulling him with her. Murphy sucks in a breath of air and follows her down. 

The pool is probably between five and six feet deep, considering she was able to keep her head just above the surface, but it’s inky black when he opens his eyes, on the off chance he can see anything. There’s nothing but murky darkness in his vision though, the sting of salt strong until he closes his eyelids again. It feels like it takes long minutes to swim down to the bottom, the weight of the water pushing against him every moment, and when she places his fingers against the rough surface of the rock that traps her, he brings his other hand over to feel the size of it, bulky and awkward and every bit as heavy as she warned him. He needs to know where her foot is, to find out which way to tilt the rock, and he’s surprised when his fingertips graze against the silky bare skin of her ankle instead of a shoe or boot. It doesn’t make sense but it’s secondary to helping her escape, and his lungs are starting to burn so he lifts with all his might, trying to brace his feet against anything he can to help him get leverage. 

It takes a couple of tries to jerk the rock far enough off her foot to release her, and a few times her fingers brush over his, making him feel even more lightheaded than he already is from lack of air. When they finally succeed she squeezes his bicep and starts yanking him upwards and the first gulp of oxygen when his head breaks the surface is painful, scorching his throat and making his eyes tear up. She drags him through the water and he doesn’t know how it’s possible but it’s her who pushes him up onto the rocks above them while he coughs and sputters, seawater choking out of his mouth and nose. He curls onto his side, knees drawn to his chest while his burning eyes glimpse her lithe form emerging from the depths onto the rough surface of the crevice beside him, seemingly none the worse for wear since she isn’t breathing roughly like he is. 

The glare of the flashlight almost seems to make her body sparkle in the shadows, drawing his eye toward her bare feet and legs, and the long, tangled hair that drapes over her shoulders. None of this makes sense - why she was there at all, but also how she had gotten in the water to begin with and where her shoes were or any safety equipment if she had deliberately chosen to explore inside the small grotto. 

He finds it difficult to speak, his throat sore from holding his breath, and he wants to ask her if she’s alright and about all the rest of it too, but only harsh wheezing erupts from his mouth as her worried gaze scans him up and down while she moves closer. 

“You swallowed too much water,” she says, concern written all over her face as she crouches over him, and when she rolls him to his back and places her palm over his neck there’s instant relief, like he can breathe again without obstruction, though for some reason words still won’t come and there’s a numbness spreading through his limbs, rendering him heavy and immobile as well as speechless. 

“Don’t try to speak. I know it’s difficult to understand, but you were never supposed to see me.” The woman leans over him farther, gently pushing his wet hair off his forehead, her eyes soft as she smiles sweetly at him. “I _was_ in trouble though, and you _did_ save me. I’m sorry I lied at first, but I can tell you the truth now, although in a minute you aren’t going to remember it.” 

She waves her hand towards her legs, curled under her, and while he can’t tilt his head, he can at least flick his eyes over to see what she’s gesturing towards. As he watches the light seems to shimmer around her for a moment before her legs morph and change into a solid, glimmering iridescent tail, complete with translucent fin at the bottom. 

“You see, I’m not exactly human,” she informs him, her grin widening as she takes in what must be the stunned look in his eyes. “A rock did get dislodged while I was in the water, but it trapped my tail. It was too heavy for me to move by myself, and if you hadn’t come along, I’d have been stuck for a long time. I used a bit of my magic while we were underwater, to make you think it was my foot caught instead. I’m going to use more of my magic to make you forget you ever saw me, but I promise it won’t hurt, and I’ll make sure when you wake up you’ll be somewhere safe. And I can’t let you leave unrewarded, not after you put yourself in danger to help me.”

She closes her eyes, and after a moment a single teardrop falls, trailing down her cheek until she lifts a finger to catch it. In an instant the glistening droplet changes into a solid round pearl, shining with the same iridescence as her tail. 

“Thank you. I won’t forget how you helped me even though I know this didn’t make any sense to you.” 

Leaning in even closer, her lips graze against his forehead, leaving behind a tingling sensation and a strong urge within him to touch her, to keep her from leaving, although he can do nothing but sluggishly blink, his eyes feeling heavy with every passing second as she sits up and takes his hand in hers. 

He keeps his eyes on her face as best he can, ordering himself to remember what she looks like as she places the pearl in the center of his palm and begins to close his fingers securely around it, but then her eyes widen in amazement as he feels her trace over the raised, small spiral scar at the base of his left thumb. 

“It’s you!” she exclaims. “After all this time, you’ve finally come back!”

The shock and disbelief in her warm brown eyes is only evident for too-brief seconds before his eyelids close again and his vision goes black. 

* * *

He wakes up on the beach, his stomach growling and his clothes damp and sandy. The waves rolling in are loud but relaxing even so, and the air is cool as sunset is near. Is it possible he dozed off after a long day exploring? He remembers a beautiful, brown-eyed woman, but as he sits up and looks around at the deserted stretch of shoreline all around, the only thing out of place is him and the bucket to his right, his flashlight and water bottle inside. Murphy moves to grab the handle but as he does so, something falls out of his hand, something hard. A rather large pearl rests in the sand next to his thigh and as he moves to pick it up, a foggy memory nags at the edges of his mind. Staring distractedly at the pearl, his free hand lifts to his forehead, rubbing absentmindedly at the center where there’s a slight prickling. 

Did he dream about a _mermaid_?

* * *

Murphy eats the stew Mrs. Donovan made for him as soon as he hikes back up to the house, but he feels restless afterwards, annoyed that he can’t remember exactly what happened for most of his day because something tells him it was important. Sitting at the kitchen table and staring at the pearl for close to an hour doesn’t do anything to jog his memory no matter how hard he glares at it, so he ends up walking down to the local pub, eager for some company to perhaps distract him, or if not that, then a pint or two of Guinness to do the job instead. 

An elderly man he remembers from earlier in the week is sitting at the well-worn bar, and Murphy nods in greeting as he slides onto the stool next to him. 

“Evening, Mr. Sullivan. Can I buy you a drink tonight or have you had your fill already?”

The man laughs. “No true Irishman can ever say no to a question like that, my boy, even if he _has_ had his fill!” He raises his glass, gesturing towards the bartender. “Pat, I’ll take another whiskey, but this time put it on our American friend’s bill!”

Murphy orders his pint along with it, and it isn’t long before the two are engrossed in conversation about the area, including the topography of the local cliffs and what the older man knows about them. 

“If you like exploring the local shores and all the little inlets and crevices dotted all around, you should take a trip over to Cloyne Cave,” Mr. Sullivan tells him. “You can get lost if you aren’t careful in that one. I myself have a fondness for our rough and rocky bits of shoreline, with plenty of legends and the pirate and mermaid stories to go along with them.”

Murphy debates mentioning anything about the weird situation he found himself in today, knowing that _something_ odd happened to him, though he still hasn’t gotten any closer to figuring out what, and the mention of mermaids in particular sends a rush of interest through him, but fate takes over when his uncertain silence prods Mr. Sullivan into another comment. 

“I haven’t read them myself - no offense intended, of course, knowing I’m quite a ways past the age of your target audience! But everybody around these parts knows of Seamus and Kathleen Murphy’s writer grandson, living in America all fancy with his pile of stories. Seems to me I recall a fair few youngsters saying they have mermaids in them, is that right?”

“It is,” Murphy admits, thinking of the six books in his series. Only five have been published so far, but he turned the final draft of book six over to his publisher just before his mother died, and he expects it will be put out around the holidays to drive up sales. “I’ve been very lucky to have them become so popular.”

“That’s the Irish in you,” Mr. Sullivan winks. “But I imagine you know all about mermaids then, if you write about them yourself.”

The white-haired man looks at him expectantly, and Murphy shrugs after considering for a moment. 

“I know some things, yes, but I actually try to stay away from researching too much, since I enjoy coming up with my own ideas and lore. My dad used to tell me there were mermaids in Ireland, and I always figured part of my interest was because he spoke of them so vividly. There were a lot of bedtime stories about mermaids in my house when I was a kid, and in a way I suppose I’m reliving that, when I write about them in my books.”

“Yes, Ireland has a long history, maybe even a love affair with mermaids, if you will. Your da was not wrong about that, and I know old Seamus Murphy knew how to weave a tale, so I’m not surprised your da had the gift as well. Suppose it’s a family trait, eh? _Murúch -_ or the merrow - is one of the names we call them, in our folklore. There are tales to this day that linger, such as how over in Bantry they’ll swear there’s been plenty of inter-marriages between humans and the merrows, and that their descendants have scaly skin or slight membranes between their fingers or toes.” Mr. Sullivan jerks his chin towards the left of the pub, to where a younger man is slouched over a table, nursing his own mostly empty drink. “Or you could always ask our own Finn Collins, who says it was a mermaid who saved himself from drowning one night, when he fell into the sea drunk as a sailor!”

Mr. Sullivan laughs heartily and then drains his glass, hopping off the stool with much more grace than Murphy would expect from such a frail-looking man. 

“I’ll be off then. Thank you for the drink and the company, and next time it’ll be my turn. Night, Pat!” 

At that Mr. Sullivan leaves, and Murphy debates internally before he orders another drink from Pat, getting a glass of whatever Finn Collins has as well. What’s that saying? _In for a penny, in for a pound_. Though technically he supposes that’s English. Either way, he’s already caught up in the possibility that something involving a mermaid happened to him today, so what’s one more story, when stories make up so much of who he is?

Murphy makes his way through the slightly crowded pub, setting the glass of amber liquid in front of the so-called town drunk, Finn Collins. “Can I join you?”

Finn looks up with bloodshot eyes, but the expression on his face is friendly, at least. “Anyone who wants to buy me a drink is always welcome. I’m guessing you’d be the American then, the writer Murphy?”

“John Murphy, yes. And you’re Finn Collins.”

“I suppose my reputation precedes me,” Finn laughs. “Every Irish town needs their drunk, right? Keeping up the impressions for the tourists?”

Murphy takes the seat across from Finn, taking a long pull of his own drink before he asks the strange question on his mind. “If you know I’m a writer, maybe you also know that my books are about a society of mermaids. I heard you might have your own local mermaid story.”

“I do, not that anyone ever believes me.”

“Try me.”

Finn raises an eyebrow, and downs his whiskey in a single gulp that has Murphy biting back a wince. “There’s not that much to tell, truth be told. One night a summer or two ago, I drank even more than usual. Took a wrong turn out the pub door, instead of heading home. Went out near the cliffs and ended up falling over, into the sea. The drop didn’t kill me because the waves were deep enough, but I would have drowned for sure if it wasn’t for what I swear was a mermaid who saved me. Nothing around but starlight when she dragged me mostly to shore. Dark hair, dark eyes. Beautiful, exactly like you’d expect. Caught just a glimpse of her tail, all shiny. Told me she might not be around the next time and I should stop drinking. As you can see, I have not listened. But I did stop walking around the cliffs when I’m that far gone, so that’s something, I suppose.” Finn wipes his mouth with his sleeve. “Go on then, have your laugh about it like everyone else.”

Maybe Murphy would have suppressed a laugh, before. Before he woke up earlier today covered in sand and with hazy memories of a mermaid in his head and a pearl in his hand. But now there’s no laughter, only curiosity and a weird sense of satisfaction at the physical description Collins gave him. 

“Brown hair, brown eyes? What color tail?”

“I don’t know, but it glimmered, I think,” Finn mumbles, obviously shocked that Murphy’s reaction isn’t to make fun. “Sparkly, even in the dark.”

“Was she young or old?”

“I figured her around my age, once I’d thought about it. But it all happened pretty fast, and did I mention I was drunk off my ass? Why are you even asking?”

Murphy shrugs. “It’s my line of work, I guess. Stories in general, and mermaids in particular. You never know where your next flash of inspiration will strike.”

Finn shoots him a skeptical look, but makes no move to send him on his way, and to Murphy’s surprise, the conversation turns to the game on the television and they end up sharing another drink before Murphy begins the walk back to the cottage and the comfortable bed that waits for him. 

* * *

He dreams of the sea. Of playing pirates and digging up buried treasure on the beach. The taste of salt in the air and on his lips, and in his dreams he knows he’s a child again, running with endless energy along the sand and the rocks as the gulls swoop and cry overhead. Except he’s not alone, though his company isn’t the expected presence of his father or grandparents. No. There’s a girl with him. A girl his age, in a pink bathing suit and dark pig-tails, who swims better than he does though she isn’t as loud, and they laugh and yell as they race along the shoreline together. There’s something familiar about the girl but every time he tries to look closer his vision gets cloudy or she darts out of reach, giggling as he tries to catch her. 

“Swim with me, John!” she implores him, “I’ll find you a pretty shell if you do!” 

Murphy looks down at his feet and there’s a pile of shells already, the fancy kinds you usually have to buy as souvenirs, but somehow he senses they’re all from her. Every time the girl goes in the water she finds another, presenting it to him like a gift in a game that neither of them tire of, but this time she walks out of the waves and the shell she holds out is different. It’s bigger than her hand, somehow glowing from within like it’s alive, and she smiles at him when she takes his fingers in hers to trace over the smooth surface of it. 

“You’ll hide it for me, won’t you? It’s important.”

When he wakes up, Murphy remembers the dream clearly, like he watched a movie of it playing out on a screen, and he thinks maybe it wasn’t a dream after all. 

* * *

The next few days fall into a routine almost without him being aware of it, and Murphy isn’t sure what impulse makes him do it, but one afternoon he rearranges the furniture on the enclosed back porch to accommodate the desk from the living room so he can have a view while he taps away on his laptop, and before he knows it, he has a new and unexpected prequel for his book series roughed out, surprising the hell out of him. It’ll probably make his publisher very happy, and he wonders if a part of him knew the inspiration was coming, after that night at the pub and his conversations with Mr. Sullivan and Finn Collins and his renewed fixation on mermaids.

But either way, maybe the new book idea isn’t quite as surprising as the day he finds himself ripping out some of the uneven grass along the front gate after spotting flowers at the market that he recognized as some that also used to be in his grandmother’s garden. He buys a dozen and plants six on each side of the stone wall despite having never tried his hand at gardening before, but his eyes don’t need to avoid the front yard every time he walks in and out afterwards even if he is well aware he still has a ways to go to get back to where his grandmother left it. 

Each of these events though, as unpredictable as they feel, end up being just blips on the radar compared to his complicated reaction to the woman who shows up near the cliffs one morning. 

* * *

It’s not completely unusual for other people to be on the stretch of beach Murphy has come to think of as his. Which is why he’s learned to get there early if he wants to make sure he can enjoy it by himself, at least for an hour or two. As he walks down the cliffside path, carrying a blanket, towel and small cooler, it’s something of a disappointment to see a bright red umbrella already perched in the sand not far from the waves. He can’t tell how many people might be sitting underneath it, but either way it feels like someone has gotten the better of him by being there so early. 

There’s plenty of room on the beach for lots of people, but he considers turning around and trying again tomorrow before he gets to the bottom of the trail, and he supposes the only thing that really stops him from doing exactly that is pure stubbornness. He’s brought a book with him today, a New York Times bestseller that everyone’s raving over, and he wants to know what all the fuss is about so he trudges about as far away as he can get from the umbrella to spread out his blanket. Once he’s settled in, he gets comfortable and pulls out the book and begins to read. It’s impossible to be sure about it, but probably within fifteen minutes he’s asleep in the warm morning sun, the book forgotten once it falls out of his hand. 

It’s not noise that wakes him up, more like the sensation of being watched, and when he opens his eyes she’s right there, the beautiful dark-eyed woman he keeps remembering or dreaming about or _imagining_ after that strange day near the coves, and she’s staring at him, and if he had to place her expression he would say it was decidedly fond. He scrambles up on his elbows, feeling confused as she moves a bit backwards, though perhaps not as far as would be considered polite, since she’s still very much in his personal space. Not that he plans on complaining.

“Sorry I woke you,” she says, clearly not sorry in the least. “You’re turning a bit red in the sun, and I thought you should know.”

He can feel it, the burn on his cheeks and chest, but the heat’s not all due to a sunburn. Not when she looks like _that_. And certainly not when someone who looks like _that_ is looking at him so… so enigmatically. 

“Do I know you?” he wonders, his eyes roaming her face, willing himself to remember. How it’s possible that he can’t place someone who sets his heart to racing like this is more than just frustrating - it’s like there’s some kind of wall in his head he can’t get through, even though he knows the answer must be on the other side. 

“Why? Do I look familiar?” Her questions sound eager to his ears, like she wants him to be able to say yes. 

“I don’t know,” he answers, disappointed that no matter how hard he tries, the memories are still so elusive. 

Her smile fades a little, but then she sticks out her hand and he has to sit up further to take it, bringing them all the closer to one another. Her eyes have flecks of gold and amber in them, and he could stare at them all day if she let him. 

“I’m Raven. Maybe you’ve just seen me around town before, since I’m here for the summer.”

“John Murphy,” he replies, wishing her name rang a bell, “also here for the summer. And it’s strange, but I must have seen you here at the beach, because I feel like your hair was wet when I saw you before. Do you swim here a lot?”

“I do, yes,” she laughs, and it occurs to him that he's still holding her hand and he’s an idiot making such a stupid comment, but for once the memory is _strong_ instead of murky, the image of this particular woman with wet strands of hair clinging to her cheek so vivid in his brain. How is he so sure of _that_ while at the same time he doesn’t know if he saw it for real or dreamed it?

“Do you want to swim with me now, John Murphy?” Raven asks, the simple question sending him into another round of second-guessing because it tugs at his memories too, but then she’s standing, pulling him to his feet with the grip they still have on each other and his mouth goes dry at the full length of her, dressed only in a deep green bikini, her bare toes painted a pale shell pink. 

Maybe he’s still sleeping and this is another one of his too-real dreams, but whatever it is, he’s definitely not so stupid as to say no to her, so he follows her into the sea like an eager puppy. 

* * *

After they swim he ends up moving his meager supplies next to hers under the red umbrella and they talk and share their lunches as he tries to avoid getting any more sunburn. It turns out Raven is a regular summer visitor who has a lot of insight about which pub has the best boxty, and that gives him the perfect opening to ask her to dinner. 

“I can’t this evening,” she politely declines, and he decides to tell himself it’s not just wishful thinking on his part that she sounds regretful about it. “Can we go tomorrow instead?”

It’s ridiculous, how quickly he rushes to assure her that yes, they can definitely go tomorrow instead, but there’s something about her that fascinates him, insists that she’s maybe even the key to these so-realistic dreams and visions in his head, and he’s been wondering in the back of his mind the entire few hours they’ve spent together how to possibly bring them up without sounding like he’s gone mad. Hasn’t come up with a single idea yet. 

Too quickly the daylight starts to fade, and even though he hadn’t planned to spend so much time on the beach, he’s feeling reluctant to walk away after he carries her beach supplies up the cliff and to her car. 

“At six then tomorrow,” Raven confirms, closing the trunk, “and I’ll meet you at The Spaniard.” She holds her hand out towards him, something concealed in her fist until she uncurls her fingers and reveals a perfectly formed shell, the kind a small hermit crab might live in, delicately mottled white and green. 

“I found this while I was swimming earlier, and I want you to have it. A remembrance of a lovely day.” Raven reaches for his left hand and places the shell into his palm, and he wonders if everything this woman does is meant to send him into some kind of strange deja vu, because he would swear they’ve done this before. Her fingers are soft and gentle on his skin and then she turns to open her car door, looking back at him once as she drives away, yet another expression he can’t quite place on her face as she waves at him. 

Murphy would like to say he doesn’t need a souvenir to remember the day he’s just spent, but as he looks down at the shell in his hand and can still practically feel Raven’s touch skimming over the scar near his thumb, the edges of reality and his imagination are blurrier than they’ve ever been, and he knows he’s going to have another night of cryptic dreams. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, it's been a while on this one but as usual, life with homeschooling two kiddos during a pandemic has interfered! Note that I've updated this fic to be three chapters instead of two. It's running long. Everyone is used to this with me by now, yes?
> 
> There's a fantastic collection going on with writers & creators in the t100 fandom who are accepting prompts for Black Lives Matter causes. Click on the collection linked above to read a lot more stories, and click on the following link to read more about the guidelines & how to submit a request of your own! [Check out the carrd here!](https://t100fic-for-blm.carrd.co)

* * *

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/170152452@N02/50662149882/in/dateposted-public/)

* * *

_We were born before the wind_

_Also younger than the sun_

_‘Ere the bonnie boat was won_

_As we sailed into the mystic_

_Hark, now hear the sailors cry_

_Smell the sea and feel the sky_

_Let your soul and spirit fly_

_Into the mystic_

~ Into The Mystic, Van Morrison

He wakes the next morning and the first thing he sees is the green and white shell that he left on his nightstand, right next to the pearl that he discovered in his hand that bizarre afternoon near the coves. He was right about the odd dreams, and as he makes himself breakfast in the homey kitchen of his grandparent’s cottage, his head is full of memories and hazy fragments of the images that had filled his brain once again. 

At least he’s certain Raven herself is real, knowing that he didn’t imagine the day he spent with her or the plans they have tonight, but was she right - had he seen her in passing in the town at some point, explaining why _her_ face was the one who kept appearing in his dreams? Why was she so familiar to him, and why was his head so preoccupied with mermaids _now_ , even after years of writing about them? It’s not unusual for him to occasionally dream about mermaids after all, considering so much of his livelihood has been wrapped up in them for so long, but these new dreams are different. They feel so real and so crisp - at least until he tries to remember solid details, and then they get wispy and obscure. 

His memories of this cottage don’t feel elusive, though. No - those memories feel almost stronger every day he spends here, in the cozy house that makes him feel more at home than anyplace else he’s ever lived. It’s strange, how one summer spent here as a child can feel so clear to him when something that happened to him a year ago in Colorado seems fuzzy, but maybe it’s because there were such strong emotions of happiness here, and on the beach below the cliffs. It seems impossible not to be in a good mood now that he’s back under this roof, and it’s such a different experience for him, having a place that doesn’t come with negative baggage and recollections of his mother’s drinking. 

A lifetime ago, everyone was content in this cottage, and maybe that feeling has seeped into the very walls, since he finds himself humming throughout the day, puttering around and getting a large chunk of writing done until it’s time to get ready for his dinner date with Raven. The pub they’d agreed to meet at is in walking distance if he starts out early enough, and though the air will probably get cooler as the sky darkens, it doesn’t feel like rain so he decides to take the chance. Murphy’s almost out the door when he remembers he’s left his wallet in his bedroom, so he races up the steps to grab it. He spots it on the dresser and as he slides the slim leather into the back pocket of his jeans, his eyes land on the ornate jar of shells on display. There’s so many inside that the container is almost completely full, and each one that’s visible through the glass is practically perfect, all shiny and intricate with no two just alike. The sand around the beach isn’t particularly plentiful with shells, and vaguely it occurs to him that these aren’t the kind of shells that should really be found around here, in water that reaches cold temperatures. Yet even so, he knows they’re all shells that he proudly brought back to his grandmother every day he spent on the beach as a seven-year-old. Shells that she’d helped him put into this very jar, though it used to sit in the bedroom with the sturdy bunk beds, where he had slept so long ago. He wonders who moved it in here, into the master bedroom. Maybe Mrs. Donovan, when she’d come to clean the cottage and prepare it for his arrival...

Curious now, he glances over at the latest shell, the one Raven presented to him yesterday that he’d deliberately placed close to the bed so he could stare at it before finally falling asleep. It’s pristine like the others, almost too perfect, and when he picks it up his eyes flutter shut and he recalls his dream from the night he spoke to Finn and Mr. Sullivan, piles of perfect shells at his feet and too-fast glimpses of a young girl who gave them to him. She gave him something else too, something important - valuable even, although exactly what it was remains elusive. The girl though...that’s what he really wants to remember, determination making him wrap his fingers more tightly around the shell in his hand like he could physically force her image back into his mind. All it actually does is result in the edge of the shell piercing sharply into the base of his thumb, the brief flash of pain enough to open his eyes and bring him back to the present once more. There’s a scratch and a small bead of blood when he looks at his hand, and he scowls in annoyance as he reaches for a tissue from the nearby box. He doesn’t want to risk getting any blood on his clothes since it took him far longer than he’d like to admit to decide on what to wear, but as he focuses on the scrape to ensure he’s wiped every trace of blood away, it’s then that he notices something new. 

For as long as he can remember, he’s had a strangely shaped scar on his left hand, just where his thumb joins his palm. It’s small but raised, the skin puckered in an obvious spiral. He doesn’t know how he got it, though that’s never been something that’s nagged at him. Usually it’s barely noticeable, not unless someone is looking at his hand very closely, but now it seems almost conspicuous, the spiral itself a more reddish-pink shade than his palm so it stands out, which is definitely not how his hand normally appears. In fact the spiral even seems more distinct to him, not as blurred around the edges as it should be, and with the green and white shell still in his grip, he can easily see how the spiral scar mimics the spiraled point at the tip of the shell. He’s never made that connection before; that the scar he has could relate to the sea in any way, but now the realization feels exactly right as the thought settles in, and for the first time in maybe ever, he wonders how he got the scar in the first place. 

* * *

Murphy watches as Raven steps away from their shared table, tossing him an apologetic grin over her shoulder as she punches a few buttons on her cell phone. She ignored the ringing the first time they heard it a few minutes ago, but after she didn’t answer the phone, her text messages had started blowing up and she reluctantly excused herself to go outside and make a call. He wonders if someone is checking up on her, considering their dinner date is well into hour four. Lucky for him the pub staff doesn’t seem to mind that they’re lingering over multiple coffees, and maybe now that he’s getting a few minutes alone he can come up with a brilliant idea on how to extend their night even further. He hasn’t ever enjoyed a date this much before and the last thing he wants is for it to end, but considering neither one of them could eat another bite and they’re not exactly at a point where he could invite her back to his place without coming across as some kind of sexual deviant, that’s probably out as an option. The only thing he can come up with is asking if she wants to go for a walk with him along the cliffs, which isn’t a horrible plan but also isn’t particularly impressive either. And he hasn’t needed four hours to figure out that he definitely wants to impress Raven into accepting another invitation to go out with him. 

Her company is...different than what he’s used to. Maybe he should have understood it after those first moments on the beach, when she’d woken him up to prevent a further sunburn and had talked to him like they’d been friends for years, but that’s honestly what it has felt like during their dinner as well. Like they hadn’t seen each other in years and needed to catch up, but that there was no question they were much more than the acquaintances they actually were. Murphy doesn’t understand the feeling, not really, since he’s not at all the kind of personality that most people tend to warm up to so quickly. But whatever it is that’s causing Raven to act so comfortable with him isn’t anything he wants to change, though he wishes he could put his finger on it so he can make sure he keeps doing whatever it is that puts her so at ease. 

“Sorry about that,” Raven smiles, approaching their table once more. Murphy gets to his feet in an almost-forgotten habit of good manners, waiting until she sits back down before returning to his own chair. 

“Is everything okay?”

Her smile falters a little. “Yes and no. As much as I’ve enjoyed myself this evening, I don’t have much more time. Do you want to go for a walk with me?”

He’s uncertain how he should take her comments, debating whether he should ask her what she means about not having time, but then he latches on to the fact that she didn’t _have_ to say she was having fun with him unless she wanted to say it, and that she’s not ready to end things just yet either. And that’s really all he wants to concentrate on anyway. 

“A walk sounds good.”

Raven’s mouth curves into another wide grin, and the thought occurs to him that he’d do just about anything to keep that expression on her face when she looks at him. Yeah, whether it’s a smart plan or not, he’s far past viewing Raven as someone he’s just met. As much as he wants to figure out whether she’s connected to his latest dreams, the more time he spends with her the more he doesn’t care if he ever figures it out - just as long as they get to keep talking. 

He pays the bill as quickly as he can and they spill out the door into the cooler night air, the earthy scent of turf-fire smoke from the pub chimney sharp on the slight breeze that lifts Raven’s hair off her shoulders as they head towards the cliffs and the sound of the crashing waves. They don’t speak until the streets of the little town are well behind them, and then it’s Raven who breaks the silence first, stopping in her tracks and turning towards him once they’re standing close to the edge of the steep drop-off, the wide and open area around them completely deserted. Maybe it should feel odd that their first date has brought them to this wild and windswept place, but something inside him already knows he’d follow Raven anywhere she wants to go. 

“John, I know this will sound strange, but I don’t have as much time as I would like to ease you into this. Will you hold out your hand to me? Your left hand?”

She doesn’t make a move to reach for it herself, only stares at him with big, dark eyes that implore him to trust her. As if he could do anything different. 

He lifts his arm, extending it out towards her and she curves her palm under his, supporting his hand as she stares down at it in the starlight. Her head is bent so he can’t see what she’s thinking, but then he can’t think at all as she starts to trace the pads of her fingers over the raised edge of his scar. It feels hypersensitive when she touches it, sending a shiver through him so strong his breath catches. 

“That didn’t hurt, did it?” 

Her question is filled with concern but he’s having trouble answering her, the urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her so powerful that all he can do is shake his head. It’s too soon for him to do something like that, no matter how much he wants to. Raven seems to accept the wordless response, her eyes locked on his. 

“If I could wait, I’d give you shells every day and the magic would reawaken. That would make it easier on you. I hope you can forgive me for rushing things instead.” 

A small sigh escapes her lips as she trails off, and even though he doesn’t have any idea what she’s talking about, he wishes he could do something to reassure her since she sounds so distraught. But mostly he’s too busy feeling like every nerve-ending in his body is responding to the light caresses of her fingers on his palm and the way her dark eyes stare into him so deeply, leaving him no brainpower to do anything but resist melting into a puddle at her feet. 

“I just really need you to remember, John.” 

At that she bends her head again and presses a soft, sweet kiss right over his scar, and if he thought it felt good before to have her fingers skate over the sensitive skin, that was _nothing_ compared to the feel of her lips. She lingers for a moment, the warmth of her breath and her mouth just brushing his palm, and then his head is filled with an intense montage of images that speed by so fast he can barely make any sense of them. His father, lounging on the beach with a smiling, dark haired man. His grandmother, rolling her eyes at something his grandfather said. Waves crashing against the sand, a flash of dark braids and the giggles of a young girl. Shells, shells and more shells. Shells of different sizes and colors but always unique and beautiful and then one day there’s something else placed in his hand. A jewel, maybe, with a depth of color like an opal, sparkling with blue and silver energy like it was alive. The scent of roses and his grandmother’s scones. A vision of himself at seven, running wildly across the beach with his hand wrapped tightly around the fingers of the same little girl wearing a pink bathing suit that he’s seen in his dreams before. So much happy laughter. Whispered secrets and the kinds of urgent promises that only make sense to children. Murphy sees all of it and more until suddenly the images end, and he staggers backwards a few steps, overwhelmed and dizzy. 

Raven still has hold of his palm, and she reaches for his other wrist with her free hand, steadying him. “Are you okay?”

He blinks at her, disorientation muddying his thoughts as he tries to figure out what just happened. But then something in her expression tugs at him - the tilt of her head maybe, or the way her eyes gaze at him with such concern. Whatever it is, it’s something familiar. And then even in his confusion, he realizes. 

“We _do_ know each other, don’t we? You’re her, the girl on the beach I’ve dreamed about, the one I think I played with when I came here as a kid. You had a pink bathing suit, and you wore your hair in pigtails and braids. And you always gave me shells.”

Her eyes glisten in the moonlight, and her voice is husky with emotion when she finally answers. “Yes, that’s right. We did know each other as children. We met on the beach below your cottage, and we played together every day that summer until you went back to America. You promised you’d come back,” a choked laugh escapes Raven’s throat, “but I had no idea it would take you this long.”

Murphy feels his forehead crease in concentration as he tries to remember more, and she lifts her hand to his cheek as she shakes her head solemnly. 

“Don’t force it. It will come. I know it’s a lot to take in and you probably have a lot of questions for me. I promise I’ll tell you everything, but I have a feeling your dreams tonight will help you understand. Tomorrow I’ll come to your cottage to see you, and whatever you want to know, I’ll tell you. But for now I’ve stayed too long and I have to get back.” 

Her fingers trace over his scar once more while her other hand hesitantly lifts from his face, and he misses the warmth of her touch and her close proximity as he feels her draw away and take a step back. 

“Turn around and walk the path home, John Murphy, and I will knock at your door tomorrow afternoon. After twenty-five years, we will finally sort this all out.” Raven smiles at him the way he’s beginning to crave, and she presses something into his hand once again. “Go, and don’t turn back, okay? Just keep walking until you get home.”

“Raven, I-”

She doesn’t let him finish. “Tomorrow, I promise,” she says. “One more night and then you'll have the truth.”

He gives her a brief nod, not trusting himself to say anything else when all he really wants to do is wrap his arms around her and press his mouth to hers to see if she feels this pull between them like he does. Despite the many questions floating around in his head, his curiosity absolutely running rampant, by far the biggest urge he has is to kiss her goodnight, even if it is the last thing he should be focusing on in light of what’s just happened. 

Telling himself that he simply wants to respect her wishes, he takes one last look at her, the cliffs at her back and the wind tangling her hair before turning towards the town and the direction of his cottage. He’s a few steps away when he remembers to look down at the object in his hand, aware even before he opens his fingers that it’s another shell. It’s pink this time, pale and almost translucent as it glows in the light of the stars and moon, and Murphy can’t tear his eyes away from it until there’s the sound of a loud splash behind him. He can’t quite be sure if it’s his imagination or reality, but either way it’s hard not to turn around to look. Still, he does his best to put it out of his head, determined to climb into bed and welcome whatever dreams may come. 

Even so, while he walks the silent trek back to his cottage, it’s impossible not to remember Finn Collins and his story about the dark-haired mermaid who saved him from drowning when he drunkenly fell from these very cliffs. 

* * *

If Murphy cared about appearances, it would be awkward to consider how he opens the front door of the cottage before Raven has even knocked the next day, but he can’t be bothered with something so unimportant when he’s so impatient to have his questions answered and his dreams finally sorted out. He’s been watching the windows all morning, just waiting for her to arrive, and she looks so lovely and he remembers how much fun they had together that simple summer and how much he enjoyed her company last night as well, so was it really any wonder that he pulls her into an immediate hug, practically dragging her through the door in his haste to assure himself that she’s real and standing in front of him once more. 

Raven doesn’t resist him, though for a moment she feels stiff in his arms until her initial surprise melts away, and then she sags into him and returns the embrace just as fiercely, her arms tight around his waist as she tucks her head into his shoulder. A feeling of contentment washes over him as they stand in the warm sunbeam that shines into the front room, the air fresh and carrying the scent of the sea and his grandmother's rose bush on it, with the rhythmic thump of Raven’s heartbeat steady against his chest. Murphy wants answers, wants to know all the secrets that still feel just out of reach to him, but the questions that have been swirling around his head ever since his feet touched Irish soil feel like such an afterthought compared to holding Raven, and it’s only the loud interruption of the kettle whistle on the stove that gets him to reluctantly release her. 

“I made tea, if you’d like some,” he offers, and leads her to a chair at the worn table in the kitchen as he gathers the milk and sugar and sets them down next to the mugs he’s already laid out. 

“Thank you,” Raven smiles, and then her gaze catches sight of the glass jar of shells that he’s brought downstairs and sat next to the vase of flowers in the center of the table, her expression turning wistful. “They’re so pretty, aren’t they?”

“Beautiful,” he agrees, though his eyes don’t leave her face and he’s rewarded with her cheeks blooming a faint pink at the compliment. He doesn’t know where to start, how to begin to sort out his memories and his dreams and if he’s honest, he’s not even sure he knows exactly what has been real or what could be something he’s imagined. He’s trying to piece something intelligent together to make it look like he’s competent and can handle it all, but then Raven looks up from stirring sugar into her tea and gives him a shy glance that makes him realize she’s nervous too, and he ends up blurting out the first thing that pops into his head. 

“You’re a mermaid.”

Her eyes widen as he mentally curses himself for being an idiot, but then she laughs and the tension between them dissipates. 

“I _am_ a mermaid,” Raven confirms, though her voice isn’t much more than a whisper when she says it. Part of him thinks he should feel shocked at her confession, but mostly he just feels relieved that he’s not going crazy. And as strange as it seems, he feels like he’s always known this about her, and it doesn’t bother him in the least. 

“You were a mermaid even when we were kids, weren't you?” The question feels almost silly, since he's almost certain he already knows the answer, but maybe it's best he starts out with something simple.

She nods. “I have always been one, yes. But there are differences in...abilities, let’s say, between children who are mermaids and adults who are. There are things that mermaid children cannot do, and that can make it easier for them to be more like humans when they are young. Although there are also things that mermaid children can do that human children cannot.”

Murphy looks over at the jar of shells, considering. Last night his dreams were slower, more revealing than usual, and he remembers the younger version of Raven, who one minute had an empty hand, and the next, would have a perfect shell to give to him. 

“You mean like creating shells out of thin air, maybe?”

“That’s one of the things we can do, though it’s not exactly like we create things out of nothing.” Raven’s eyes sparkle with humor, and every last flicker of nervousness he’s been carrying around evaporates at the sight. No matter what Raven has to say about his dreams and memories, there’s nothing that could make him change his mind about _her_. 

“Last night my dreams were less mysterious, more clear than I’ve had these past few weeks, just like you said. Why was that?”

She takes a small sip of her tea, her expression thoughtful. “I think it will be easiest if I just start from the beginning, but last night when we were at the cliffs, I knew I could make your memories return faster by touching the scar on your hand, because I’m the one who gave it to you to begin with.”

It fits somehow, and knowing that the scar he’s always viewed as an interesting piece of his history was due to Raven pleases him, even if he hadn’t ever remembered its origins before now. 

“The first summer you came to Ireland was also my first summer here,” Raven begins. “I don’t know if you saw him in your dreams, or if you might remember on your own, but I have an uncle named Sinclair. He is my mother’s younger brother, and he has been my guardian since my mother died that year.”

It may have been a long time ago, but he can tell by the way Raven’s voice wavers that it’s still a difficult topic for her, and he reaches across the table to grasp her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It was very unexpected, and even though I was young, I knew Uncle Sinclair was taking me away from a dangerous situation, even if I didn’t fully understand what was going on. It might come as a shock to hear me say this, but there are mermaids in every ocean, almost every body of water, really, and some mermaids like to explore if they are able to. Sinclair and I come from a mermaid clan near the Caribbean, but my uncle has had friends in the Celtic Sea for many years and felt that I would be safe here. Not long after we arrived, we saw you and your dad on the beach below the cliffs, and I begged him to let me play with someone my age. And that’s how we met.”

He remembers that day, now that his head isn’t so muddled. At first he’d been quiet when she’d chatted his ear off and his dad had talked with the other man who had been with her. But then she’d told him they should dig for buried treasure, and after that they’d been the best of friends. 

“Buried treasure,” he grins, recalling the many, many holes they’d dug together, sunny days and rainy days both. But then he wants to know something else. “So if you’re mermaids, how does it work that you can walk around like humans?”

“That’s something that comes easily for mermaid children, but as we get older, we have a bit more limitations with it,” Raven explains. “It’s because our magic grows in other ways, and mermaids aren’t meant to completely live as humans, so as we age, we can only walk on land for a handful of hours at a time, like I did last night, and like I’m doing now. But then we must return to the sea for a time, to allow our bodies to recharge, you might say. If we practice, we can also use our magic to make people believe that they are seeing legs instead of a tail if we get ourselves into a bind.”

“That’s what you did to me, isn’t it? I didn’t imagine that I saw a mermaid in the coves along the cliffs that day! It was _you_ that I rescued, and it really did happen. I thought it might have been a dream and that I must have fallen asleep in the sun, maybe.”

“You’re right, that was me. You saved me that day, but I thought you were a random human - a kind one, to be sure, but I didn’t know it was _you_ until I saw the scar on your palm. By that point it was too late because I had already started removing your memories of seeing me. I don’t think you understand, John. I’ve been coming back to this part of Ireland every summer for the last twenty-five years, renting cottages with Sinclair and pretending to be a tourist, hoping to find you again. You surprised me that day at the cove, and I almost couldn’t believe it, that you had finally returned.”

“Some of my memories, or my dreams, I’m not even sure which is which sometimes… Well, they’re still hazy. I feel like I don’t remember everything, and I have a lot of questions. I can’t explain it, but somehow I know you gave me something, didn’t you? Is that why you’ve been waiting for me to come back?”

Raven’s gaze darts to her lap for a moment, where her hand still rests in his, and he can see her take a deep breath before she slowly nods. 

“Yes,” she agrees, though to his ears she doesn’t sound completely sure of herself like she has for most of their conversation. She clears her throat and then continues, more confidently this time. “I did give you something, and I do need to find it. And I believe you are the only one who knows where it is. Do you remember what it was?”

“Something valuable. Important. The pictures in my head make me think it was like a jewel, maybe.” Murphy uses his free hand to grab the impressive pearl that he’d also brought to the table. “It’s much bigger than this though. And now that I’m holding it again, I’m remembering that you _made_ this. I don’t know how though - that part is fuzzy.”

“The reason your memories are so blurry is… tricky. Some of it is because your memories are so old and you were a child when they occurred, some because I was young too - and not exactly an expert at what I was doing. And it doesn’t help that I did try to erase your memory of me after the rescue a few days ago - before I knew who you were. Like I told you, there are clans of mermaids all over the world, and we’ve always had interactions with humans. But we have to be careful, obviously, and that’s one of the reasons our magic allows us to, well, to _confuse_ people, mostly.” 

She loosens her hold on his hand, turning his palm over on her thigh so that it faces up as she strokes lightly over the spiral scar. Unlike last night, he’s not assailed with a rush of memories at the touch, but the feel of her fingers dancing over the sensitive mark still sends an inescapable throb of desire through him that he fights to conceal. As much as he wants to know if she’s interested in him for more than just their childhood connection, it’s clear that his attraction to her has to take a backseat to everything else between them, even if a part of him doesn’t care so much about getting answers if it meant his feelings were returned. 

Oblivious to his musings, Raven continues with more details. “In general, it’s dangerous for humans to know about us, but we can choose to make friends, to make alliances in times of need. We have ways to build up human resistance to our magic, I guess you could put it. Things we can do so that they aren’t overwhelmed by our magic into forgetting us each time we interact.”

Murphy’s eyes are drawn to the table once more. “The shells do that, don’t they?”

“That’s part of it, yes. It’s why I gave you a shell every day we played together on the beach as kids, and why I gave you another after I introduced myself again a few days ago. We can conjure them out of the sea, and the shells we make are unique to us. So just because I gave you shells that I had made wouldn’t mean that you would be immune to all mermaid magic, you understand? Your memories of me would have been stronger had you been exposed to the magic of the shells all the time, or if you’d come back to this cottage to visit and been around them again to renew their effects. Instead it was more that your memories were hidden away, weakened rather than erased. And if we had more time, eventually me giving you more shells would reinforce the connection and you would have remembered on your own. Probably in a more comfortable way. I’m sorry I couldn’t do it like that.”

“That’s alright. It didn’t hurt so much as it was all just overwhelming and confusing. Last night you told me you needed me to remember,” he jerks his chin towards the hand that Raven still cradles in her own. “And you knew that touching my scar, kissing it, would make me remember faster.”

He’s probably reading into things, wanting to believe that her cheeks turn pink again because he brought up that she’d kissed him, even in such an innocent way. It’s a gratifying thought whether it’s true or not, and for a moment he gets lost in a fantasy, wondering how she’d react if he followed his instincts and tugged her close, knotting his fingers into her hair so he could kiss her the way he’s been wanting to since he opened his eyes to find her staring down at him so warmly the day she tried to prevent him from becoming more sunburned. He’s so distracted with imagining it that he misses the first couple of things she says in reply to his comments, and he has to blink a few times to catch up and regroup. 

“...didn’t know if I could do it, but then one afternoon we were having a picnic in your grandmother’s garden and I grabbed your hand and thought about how I felt, and the scar appeared right beneath your thumb. I remember you said it tingled. At first it was obvious, red and puffy like a new injury, but in a few days it had faded and looked like it had always been a part of you. And not long after that, I gave you The Queen’s Tear.”

The name sounds familiar, and then his memories slot into place and fill in a few gaps. “That’s what I hid for you. The thing that looks like a jewel. But I still don’t understand what it means that you gave me this scar.”

She looks up at him, a guilty look spreading across her lovely face. “I didn’t fully understand it either, not when we were seven. Uncle Sinclair had told me stories of course, about our magic and what we could do and about how finding a trustworthy human was rare. He said that if we did find a friend, we could mark them in such a way that as long as we continued to trust them, then we mermaids could create a sort of deeper connection between us that would be stronger than our usual magic. Harder to erase. Back then, I knew I trusted you and I thought you were the right person to keep my secret. I didn’t know when I gave you this scar what it would mean for me all these years later, or that it would help me recognize you even after we grew up, but I’m glad I did it even if Uncle Sinclair was upset when he found out what I'd done.”

“I’m glad you did it too, because if you hadn’t recognized me that day I found you stuck in the cove, we might never have met up again. And maybe I wouldn’t ever have figured out all these messy images in my head on my own. Why was your uncle upset about it though?”

“It’s...complicated.” 

Her obvious evasion of the question as well as her inability to look him in the eye makes him all the more curious, but there really is still so much he doesn’t know. And maybe something _he_ should tell her while they’re discussing it all. 

“Raven, you should know that even though I remember you gave me The Queen’s Tear now, and I even remember what it looks like… Well, I’m sorry to tell you that I don’t remember what I did with it. How important is it that you find it?”

“That’s complicated too, but in a different way,” she sighs. “My mother was the ruler of our mermaid clan. My father passed away before I was born, and she found another partner when I was around three. In human terms, you could say she remarried. Things were wonderful while she was alive, but after she died so unexpectedly, her partner used my uncle’s inattention and grief to take control of some important political powers in the immediate aftermath. Uncle Sinclair could have challenged him for the throne, but he chose to raise me away from the corruption that started with my stepfather Thelonious’ leadership instead. In our clan, the jewel that I gave you is very important. It serves as a test that will only react in the presence of the rightful ruler of our people. My mother left it to me, but I was too young when she died and Uncle Sinclair thought it would be less dangerous to let everyone believe that my mother had hidden The Queen’s Tear. Only, she hadn’t. She had given it to me less than three months before she died. Of course, years after everything happened, I often wondered if she suspected that Thelonious had been corrupted and might try to harm her. Back then Uncle Sinclair tried to protect me from hearing all the rumors, and he couldn’t prove anything about her death, but it was obvious The Queen’s Tear wouldn’t be safe if Thelonious thought I had it, and neither would I. So Sinclair brought me to Ireland, and then I asked you to hide my most prized possession, keeping the secret even from me so that I wouldn’t be able to lead anyone to it even if I was found.”

“Wow. That's a lot for a kid to deal with. Have you gone back to your clan since you left as a child? Do you know how things are going for your people or if your stepfather is still their leader?” He takes a deep breath, almost afraid of the answer to his next question. “And what will happen if I can’t remember where I hid The Queen’s Tear?”

“Uncle Sinclair has always had his ways of knowing what’s happening when we aren’t present in the clan, and when I turned sixteen, we returned to the Caribbean so I could take my rightful place on the Council, because a seat on it belongs to me by birthright. We let everyone believe that as far as we knew, The Queen’s Tear was still lost, and I have been convincing enough that Thelonious has become complacent that I am not out to overthrow him. And I haven’t been, until a few years ago when I felt I was old enough and experienced enough to truly challenge him. I return to Ireland every summer to look for you and the jewel, but it has only been about three years since I convinced my uncle that I wanted to take the test. We have used that time to build allies in our own clan and others, and I believe that once I take the test and am hopefully proven the rightful heir, things will proceed as peacefully as possible.” She lifts her shoulders in a half-shrug, almost apologetic as she continues. “Now that you know who I am, I can give you some time to try and remember on your own. But if your dreams don’t reveal the spot that you hid The Queen's Tear soon, I must use my magic and your scar to push you along. My clan cannot wait another year.”

She looks worried as she wraps up her explanation, and he gets that this is all daunting and complex and he’s only touching the surface of the entire situation, but he does know that he wants to help. “I meant it when I said it didn’t hurt when you forced the memories to happen last night. If you need to know right now, you can do it again. Just touch my scar like you did by the cliffs and do whatever magic you have to.”

Raven shakes her head. “I appreciate your willingness, I really do, but it’s a delicate thing to get into your head like that. Even though it didn’t hurt you, my magic did complicated things to your brain in order to make you recall so many lost memories all at once. It’s not safe to do it again this quickly, and I would never risk something like that on you. You’ve remembered a lot already, and you’re in this house with all the shells again, and the more we see each other and visit the beach, the more the magic will reignite through our connection. This is all so new, and it’s so much to take in. Everything will come back to you, I just know it. It may simply take a little more time.”

Maybe she’s right, but he still experiences a stab of disappointment because he can’t immediately give her the information she’s looking for. Raven nudges her fingers against his, pulling his gaze to her as if she senses his frustration. 

“You know, you’re taking this surprisingly well, considering you’ve just been told fantasy creatures are real and not only have you met one, but she’s technically what you would call a princess and has involved you in a mysterious quest for a lost artifact. If I had known you were going to be this relaxed about it, I wouldn’t have been so nervous about telling you!”

“You don’t ever have to feel nervous about telling me anything. Before I knew who you were, somehow you never felt like a stranger to me. I couldn't really explain it, but being with you felt comfortable. Now that I remember you, you're always going to be able to trust me.”

She smiles, looking so delighted that she distracts his train of thought again, and he sits there like an idiot for a few moments, just staring at her before he recalls what he was going to say. He really needs to get himself under control.

“You know, most of my adult life has revolved around mermaid stories, if you can believe it. I’m a writer, and I have a whole series of books about mermaids and their adventures. I thought they were finished since the last one will be published soon, but after I came back here, I surprised myself by starting to outline a whole new idea for a prequel. Pretty sure I can thank you for the new inspiration,” he teases, but then his words sink in and he comes to a different conclusion. “Actually, damn. Maybe you’re the reason I got so obsessed with mermaids in the first place, even if I never realized it.”

“I didn’t know you were a writer! That’s wonderful! And about mermaids - I can’t wait to read your books!” 

“Lucky for you, I’m pretty sure I can get you some signed copies,” he grins. “In fact, based on your description of things so far, maybe I’ve even gotten a few things right, however unintentionally. But wait - that makes me think of something. You said you came back here every year, waiting for me. But you and your uncle knew my name and where my family and I lived. You could have looked me up or, I don’t know, sent someone to find me or asked my grandparents while they were still alive. If you needed The Queen’s Tear, why didn’t you look for me as all these years passed?”

“At first it was important to keep The Queen’s Tear hidden, so it was okay that you hadn’t come back, other than I missed my friend,” Raven explains. “And then as I got older, and I worried that you’d forget me, I told my uncle I wanted to go find you, even if it was just to keep slipping you shells in some way, so that our connection wouldn’t fade. But he made me promise that I wouldn’t go looking for you _or_ The Queen’s Tear until I was experienced enough to take the test to see if I was the rightful ruler. I didn’t like it, but he just wanted to protect me, and I understand that better now. Uncle Sinclair has always blamed himself for my mother’s death, thinking that if he’d been more involved with the political intrigue he might have known that Thelonious had gone rogue before she was killed.”

“Is it safe for you to take the test now, to be the leader of your people?”

“I believe so,” Raven assures him, but he can hear a note of hesitation in her voice. “Sinclair and I have made a lot of progress since our return - there are many who think that I am the rightful ruler, not Thelonious, and people remember the peace of my mother’s kingdom and want that again. My years on the Council have taught me a lot about leadership, and I care very much for the people in our clan. In fact, before I left the Caribbean this last time, I told Sinclair it would be the last summer I would wait for you to return on your own. I had started to make plans for tracking you down. I truly didn’t expect you to show up, but here you are.”

He isn’t entirely convinced that Raven becoming Queen of her mermaid clan is going to be safe for her, but it isn’t his place to lecture her about it. At least not now, anyway. So he grins instead, tugging her to her feet. 

“Yep, here I am. And I don’t know about you, but all this talking is making me hungry. If you’re going to be human for a few more hours, what do you say we take a picnic down to the beach? Mrs. Donovan made a killer apple cake, and I wouldn’t share it with just anyone, but I might be convinced to part with a slice or two, if you ask very nicely.”

Raven laughs, exactly as he’d hoped, and the anxious clouds disappear from her eyes as he opens a cabinet and starts thrusting things into her hands. 

Later. There will be time for more questions later. For now he just wants to enjoy her company. And the way she makes him feel whenever she smiles.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for staying with me on this one - I hope you like the wrap up! Writing a modern fairy-tale-ish story about mermaids has been a challenge for me, and it feels good to have it complete. I hope you enjoy the tale I chose to tell! Setting it in Ireland was really fun for me since I've been there twice and it felt like I got to relive a little bit of that feeling as I thought about this fic. Slainte!
> 
> There's a fantastic collection going on with writers & creators in the t100 fandom who are accepting prompts for Black Lives Matter causes. Click on the collection linked above to read a lot more stories, and click on the following link to read more about the guidelines & how to submit a request of your own! [Check out the carrd here!](https://t100fic-for-blm.carrd.co)

* * *

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/170152452@N02/50662149882/in/dateposted-public/)

* * *

_We were born before the wind_

_Also younger than the sun_

_‘Ere the bonnie boat was won_

_As we sailed into the mystic_

_Hark, now hear the sailors cry_

_Smell the sea and feel the sky_

_Let your soul and spirit fly_

_Into the mystic_

~ Into The Mystic, Van Morrison

The next week ends up being the happiest he can remember for longer than he’d like to admit, and because he’s much more familiar with disappointment in his personal life than he’d like to be, he makes sure to enjoy each minute to the fullest. Each night of dreams brings more memories of his childhood summer, more fleeting images and half-formed possibilities, but he doesn’t push Raven to give him answers during their days together, content to let things happen naturally like she said they would. Instead he indulges the inherent writer in him that has entirely different queries, prodding him to ask her incessantly about how mermaids integrate into the human world - how she got identification, if mermaids fly on airplanes, where she gets money from, and what she does with her cell phone when she goes back into the ocean each time she’s exhausted her magic. She must find all his questions amusing based on the way she teases him with answers that couldn’t possibly be true, but he can’t be completely sure either, especially when she hints that there’s quite a lot of lost treasure in the Earth’s various oceans. 

Most of their days are spent on the beach and on walks along the cliffs, but they go into town a few times, catching the eyes of many of the locals, and old Mr. Sullivan winks at him cheekily when they run into him at the pub and share another round of drinks. Mrs. Donovan never says a word to Murphy about who he’s keeping company with, which he finds rather endearing considering her love of chatter and gossip, but the meals she leaves for him get unquestionably bigger, like she’s silently encouraging him to invite another guest to share, and he’s more than happy to oblige. 

He learns that Raven’s uncle Sinclair is still in the Caribbean, though he’s the one who had called Raven so frequently during the night of their first dinner together - concerned that she was staying in human form too long, and wondering how Murphy was handling what she needed to reveal. From reading between the lines of Raven’s words, Sinclair isn’t as relieved as she is that Murphy has turned up in Ireland again. He can’t really blame her uncle for it, not when his reappearance puts Raven that much closer to leading her clan and being in potential danger. He hasn’t thought how to broach his concerns with her yet, at least not in a way that doesn’t sound overly presumptuous. Raven mentions that if Sinclair can get away, he’ll come to see them, and Murphy hopes that will happen even if Sinclair doesn’t like him much. He'd bet they probably have more in common when it comes to worrying about Raven than Sinclair might expect, and it would be a relief to get another perspective on how dangerous this situation really could be, since he suspects Raven might not like to acknowledge it even to herself. 

Even with the concerns he’s currently keeping private, Raven makes it easy to be carefree whenever he’s in her company, her smiles and laughter brightening even the grey and overcast sky that rolls in over the sea one evening a little over a week since he’s learned the truth. They race back to his cottage but they don’t quite make it before the rain starts to fall, both of them out of breath and grinning ear to ear even though their hair is soaked and their clothes are dripping, and he wishes he could freeze time just then, sealing them in this perfect moment as they lean against the faded wall of the warm and dry kitchen, her eyes glittering like dark jewels in the dim light. 

He’s been wanting to kiss her since he first opened his eyes to see her gazing down at him on the beach that first day when she’d introduced herself. No, actually he’s wanted to kiss her since before that. He’d thought he’d dreamed it, but now he knows he really did rescue a trapped woman - a trapped _mermaid_ \- down in the coves, and he’d wanted to kiss her then too. There hasn’t really been a moment with Raven that he _hasn’t_ wanted to kiss her, come to think of it. But every time the possibility seems to present itself, he’s second-guessed things or wondered if she’s really interested in him as anything more than her childhood friend who’s going to finally help her find a long-lost relic. So he's let the opportunity slip through his fingers, every time.

Now though, there’s no way he can stop himself from leaning in, lifting his hand to cradle her wet cheek as their eyes meet. He hesitates for a few heartbeats, giving her a chance to resist before his lips descend to brush against hers. The first touch sends a jolt through him, like static electricity building up and finally finding a release. Murphy crowds closer when she doesn’t move away, pushing her against the wall with the weight of his body as he curves his other hand around the side of her neck, deepening the kiss, and he wants to shout in triumph when her fingers clutch a handful of his shirt and she responds passionately. The kiss gets greedy and intense in a hurry, making his head spin, and everywhere he’s pressed against her has his nerve-endings pulsing with excitement, both at the feel of her and the knowledge that she wants this too. Time does seem frozen somehow, though he knows they must have been kissing for long minutes in order for Raven’s mouth to be as swollen as it is when he finally pulls back to catch his breath. She gasps when he directs his attention to her neck, his lips caressing the smooth skin along her jaw and then down, her head tilting back further to let him have more of her. He slides his hand from her cheek, over her collarbone and shoulder, slow down her back until he reaches the hem of her rumpled shirt at her hip. Pushing the fabric up just enough to get his fingers beneath, he skims along her waist and stomach, feeling her cool skin pucker with goosebumps as she reacts to his touch. He can feel the vibration of her moan thrum against his lips where his mouth sucks at the column of her throat, but there’s not nearly enough time to savor it because then her palms push weakly at his chest, her head turning back and forth like she’s dazed. 

“Wait,” she mumbles. “No, these aren’t _your_ feelings, John. We can’t do this. I can’t do this to you.” 

She pushes more insistently and he stumbles back, reluctantly dropping his hands away from her, unsure of what’s happening, what she’s saying, his stomach twisting in knots that he’s crossed a line he shouldn’t have. 

“Raven, I’m so sorry if I misunderstood things,” he apologizes, agonized at the distraught expression on her face, a chill spreading through him that he’s read her so wrong. 

“It’s my fault,” she whispers, her eyes shimmering with tears in the fleeting seconds that she meets his gaze before she careens away from him and out of his cottage, the loud bang of the door shutting hard behind her echoing in the now lifeless room. 

Murphy staggers over to the table, collapsing into one of the sturdy wooden chairs, feeling utterly shaken. 

_What the hell had just happened?_

* * *

He barely sleeps that night, tossing and turning as he tries to wrap his mind around what went wrong between them, and what Raven could have possibly meant when she told him it wasn’t _his_ feelings. Forcing himself to wait a few hours past sunrise, the next morning Murphy goes to the summer rental where Raven’s staying, but no one answers when he knocks, and he doesn’t see her that evening at the beach or at his cottage either. He’s willing to give her space, but it’s eating at him that he doesn’t understand how they went from an incredible, dreamed-of kiss to Raven running away and now avoiding him. It’s impossible that he imagined her reaction to what they were doing - she was kissing him just as enthusiastically as he was kissing her, and every time he closes his eyes, he can remember how deliciously her hands had slid up his chest, her arms wrapping around his shoulders so she could get closer. It had been everything he’d wanted, and the knowledge that it was all crumbling around him in ruins was almost more than he could bear. 

The likelihood that Raven doesn’t want him builds with every minute she doesn’t come to talk things over together, and by the time he takes a late solitary walk the next night out to the cliffs when he’s already lain in bed for hours with his worrisome thoughts, he’s convinced himself that somehow he’ll find a way to handle just being her friend, despite how much it’ll wreck him. She can’t evade him forever - not when she still needs him to help her find The Queen’s Tear, but it’s so much more than that for him. Having Raven in his life feels like a piece that’s been missing, an empty space he didn’t even realize he had but now that she’s filled it, he doesn’t want to ever go back to a life without her. 

Making the choice to return to Ireland after all these years has put him on a path that has felt _right_ since he first got onto the plane, and even if he never gets to pull Raven into his arms again and feel her lips against his own, he’ll never regret taking the risk to kiss her after they ran in from the rain, even if now he feels like he’s lost something precious before it was even his.

  
  
He stares down moodily at the crashing waves below him, his dark thoughts lifting for a moment as he wonders if Raven is somewhere beneath the churning waters. All of his own concerns aside, he’s worried about her too - unsure what she’s thinking, if maybe she feels like she can’t be honest with him about her feelings for fear that he won’t help her find the stone that’s so important to her. He hopes that’s not the case, that she knows him well enough at this point to know that he’d never let her down like that. Would sooner throw himself off these cliffs than abandon her when she’s counting on him. 

“Thinking about jumping, are you?”

Startled both by the unexpected voice and the unnerving ability to read his thoughts, Murphy spins around abruptly at the interruption. Finn Collins, of all people. 

“Thought you didn’t come out this way anymore,” Murphy says, deciding not to answer Finn’s question. 

“Ah, I only stay away when I’m drunk. And much to my disappointment, I’m not even close to it tonight,” Finn grumbles, surprisingly more cheerful than Murphy would expect from a man with a complaint.

“So,” Finn continues after a few moments of quiet as they both watch the turbulent sea below. “I have it on good authority that people only come out here this late at night when they’re drunk, when they need to think deep thoughts, or when they’re about to jump. From the sound of you, I can rule out the first one where you’re concerned, but I’m still debating between the last two.”

Murphy side-eyes the man, curious about whether he’s suddenly become so easy to read or if it’s an innate trait of being Irish to know when people have something bothering them. “You know full well it’s the deep thoughts one, though I wonder if I should be asking you the same question, considering your reputation.”

Finn smiles good-naturedly. “Been thinking about getting sober, if you want to know the truth of it.” He shrugs his shoulders lazily. “Though the idea is less appealing in the middle of the night when I’m craving a shot of whiskey, I’ll admit.”

Deep thoughts for him too then. Murphy lifts his chin in a quick nod of acknowledgement and respect. “For what it’s worth, I think that’s an admirable goal. Let me know if I can help with a distraction or something, I don’t know.” He laughs self-deprecatingly. “I actually make a damn good pot of tea at this point, and Mrs. Donovan spoils me with her cooking.”

“Thanks. I might take you up on that.” 

The words aren’t a clear commitment, but Finn sounds sincere, and Murphy finds himself looking forward to the possibility that Finn will reach out in the near future. He’d enjoyed their unconventional conversations in the times they’d interacted, and Finn had been good company during the soccer match they’d watched together. Maybe it’s not his place to speculate, but he does question what could have Finn pursuing sobriety after what he understands is years of drinking. They don’t know each other well enough yet for him to press the issue, so the two of them stand in companionable silence as the wind picks up, getting chillier. Eventually, Murphy takes a step to leave, about to wish the Irishman good luck with his deep thoughts when Finn’s voice stops him in his tracks. 

“You asked me, before. What the mermaid who saved me looked like.” A beat or two passes, and Finn’s gaze is unblinking as he watches for Murphy’s reaction. “I’d say she looked a lot like the woman I saw you walking down the street with a few days ago.”

Murphy meets Finn’s eyes stoically, schooling his features into the most neutral expression he can. Meanwhile his brain is racing a mile a minute, completely unprepared to have someone mention Raven and mermaids in the same sentence. Nothing about his body language would confirm it, but Murphy supposes his silence probably says more to Finn than he’d like. 

Finn turns back to the waves, and then after a while he breaks the silence again. 

“Am I crazy?”

A fleeting grin flickers over Murphy’s face. “No more than I am.”

Finn looks instantly and markedly lighter, like a weight has been lifted from his back, and as he starts to walk away, he speaks over his shoulder, more relaxed than Murphy has ever seen him. “No one would ever believe me anyway, so just tell her I said thanks.” 

Murphy nods, and then chuckles as Finn breaks into an energetic jog and cups his hands around his mouth to yell one more thing, and the wind carries it to him. 

“I’ll be round for tea soon! Make sure you have something sweet to eat with it!”

Maybe his walk to the cliffs didn’t get him any closer to figuring out how he’s going to pretend he’s not in love with Raven and act like he’s fine with only being her friend, but it did succeed in making him feel like he’s taken another step on that right path he’s been navigating. 

* * *

Raven shows up the next night, slowly walking towards him from the direction of the coves. The beach is deserted except for them, gorgeous with the cliffs all around and the stars overhead, but he only has eyes for her as she settles down next to him on the sand. 

“I knew you’d be here,” she says, but he doesn’t ask how. Probably the same way he knew she’d be watching for him. 

“I’m sorry for running out like that, and for not coming back sooner. It was selfish, but I needed to think things over.”

He swallows thickly, more nervous than he expects. “I’m sorry too, for anything I pushed you into. I don’t really understand what happened, but I would never expect anything from you that you didn’t want to give.”

Her beautiful brown eyes are sad even though she attempts to smile reassuringly at him. “No, John. I meant it when I said it was my fault. You didn’t do anything wrong and have nothing to apologize for. I need to explain, but I… It’s embarrassing, and I never should have let things get this far without telling you, I know that. It’s just it was so nice,” Raven trails off wistfully, making him feel a flash of frustration. 

He desperately wants to know _what_ was so nice - did she mean kissing him? Because if so, why the hell had she _stopped_ him if they both wanted it? 

The confusion on his face must be easy to see, and Raven sighs, turning away from him as her gaze stares out over the water. The sea is tranquil tonight, at least along the beach, the sound of the water lapping against the shoreline soothing rather than stormy. It’s not enough to calm his thumping heartbeat, and while she’s told him he hasn’t done anything wrong, something tells him he shouldn’t touch her even though he wants to, knows that it’ll comfort him like nothing else. Instead he digs his fingers into the sand between them and waits. Waits for whatever it is she thinks she has to confess. Waits for the words that will probably gut him. 

She doesn’t look over again as she fidgets next to him, and her tone is quieter than usual. “John, I told you before that some things were complicated, and that Sinclair was upset that I had used my magic to mark you as a human I trusted. Mermaid children don’t usually have the ability to do that, but I didn’t know it at the time. I just knew you were my friend and that you would help me, and I believed an even stronger connection between us could never be a bad thing. So even though I didn’t know what I was doing when I tried to mark you, somehow I was able to create the scar on your hand anyway.” Raven takes a shuddering breath and risks a glance at him before her eyes dart away once more. “But I did it wrong.”

“Maybe you didn’t know exactly how to do it, but that doesn’t matter. I’ve got the scar just like I was supposed to, right? Is it the same scar you’ve given to any other human you’ve trusted?”

Raven shakes her head before he even finishes asking. “No, I never tried it again after you. Not after Sinclair finally explained what I had done. I know it’s my mark on your palm even if there’s no one else to compare it to, but I’m telling you - _I did it wrong_.”

He should be focusing on the end of her sentence, he knows that. Her insistence that there’s something wrong with their connection, that she didn’t do it right. But how can he concentrate on that when she’s just told him that she’s only ever made this kind of connection with _him_? He’s unreasonably pleased by it, and he can’t really care about whether she got it wrong, not when it means he’s the only human she’s linked herself to in this way. The possessive feeling isn’t something he’d be proud to mention, but it still feels good to know he’s the only one who has this tie to her. 

Realizing belatedly that he should say something, he scrambles to come up with a single sensible word, relieved when his mind hits on something that might actually be useful. “But it does work like you wanted, doesn’t it? You said it’s meant to create a deeper connection between you and the person you mark as long as you keep trusting them, and that it would help make their memories of you harder to erase, make it harder for them to be confused. Well, that part did work, didn’t it? Maybe it wore off after years of me being away from you and not having any of your shells nearby, but once I came back here it sure worked again. Because you tried to erase my memories of you in the cove but even though I didn’t remember exactly what happened, I knew I’d dreamed about a mermaid. I knew your face. And you felt so familiar the moment we met again on the beach, even if I didn’t remember exactly who you were to me then.” Absentmindedly, he runs his thumb over the scar, taking his thoughts further. “Not to mention how it feels when _you_ touch my scar, and what it did to me when you kissed it. I’d say this mark worked exactly like it was supposed to, especially when you add in it’s how you recognized _me_ again.”

Her shoulders straighten a little, and it’s almost like he can see her steady herself before she answers him. “That’s all true, and I meant it when I told you I would always be glad I had done it, for a lot of those reasons.” She angles her upper body towards him and he notices that her fingers are unsteady. He stuffs down the urge to hold her hand, his heart hammering in his chest as he realizes she’s still unconvinced by his own explanation. 

“John, when we were seven years old, I made that connection with you with the best of intentions. I didn’t make it just because I wanted you to hide The Queen’s Tear for me - I made it because I never had a friend like you before, human _or_ mermaid. When we spent time together that summer, I wasn’t sad thinking about my mom, or worrying about leaving my home, or even scared that Sinclair would change his mind and decide to send me away from him so he could go back and challenge Thelonious for the throne.” She takes another deep breath. “I felt _good_ , normal when I was with you, like I was just Raven, and not someone all these bad things had happened to. You made me feel like things would be alright again, and that day when I gave you your scar, I put all my feelings into creating a bond between us. Not just friendship and trust and loyalty, but all the love and gratitude I had for you too.”

She’s watching him carefully, her eyes raking over his face, and he feels foolish because he knows she’s trying to make him understand, but he still doesn’t grasp what she’s getting at. 

“Will you give me your hand again?”

He reaches towards her without a second of hesitation, and it’s much like their night along the cliffs - she cups his hand in one of her own and her touch is light as a feather as she strokes the pad of her finger over the spiral shape at the base of his thumb. There’s immediate desire flowing through him, though to some extent that’s been true all evening anyway. It’s just an especially strong rush of it when she touches him. He suspects it always will be. She looks determined now, more like herself as she observes his own shaky breaths, and he knows she’s going to kiss his scar again even before she ducks her head to do it. 

So far his dreams haven’t shown him everything. The day she gave him his scar isn’t one he remembers yet. 

“You can make me remember something specific?”

“Yes, if I’m careful. Because I was there with you then. And if it’s alright with you. It won’t be like before, when you felt dizzy because you remembered so many things at once. I’ll use my magic just for this memory. It’ll be easier for me to separate from the rest because I remember so much about that day and when it happened.”

“I trust you,” he reassures her, but it’s so much deeper than that, and the words don’t feel like they convey enough. 

She smiles at him, a real one this time, the kind that makes his heart skip a beat and his throat feel tight, and he’s about a millisecond from opening his mouth and confessing that he’s completely and madly in love with her, and he doesn’t give a damn whether their connection is right or wrong or anything in between, just as long as they’re together. But before he can put any of that into something coherent, Raven’s lips glide over his scar again, and he’s lost inside a memory. 

* * *

The first thing he notices is that he’s out of breath, his lungs heaving as he races towards the cottage front door. The second thing he notices is the scent in the air. His grandmother’s front garden in its heyday, the flowers lush and beautiful within the stone fence, the heady perfume almost making him tear up with emotion. Kathleen Murphy always smelled exactly like her garden, even when she visited him in the States, though Murphy has no idea how that’s possible. 

But most importantly, the third thing he notices is that he’s no longer an adult version of himself. No, somehow he’s seeing the world just as he did when he was seven, through the eyes of himself as a child, and it takes him longer than it should for him to realize that whatever Raven did to his brain, he’s now reliving the moment aware of both his younger self’s thoughts _and_ as the grown man he now is. 

“Beat ya!” A triumphant, gleeful voice shouts, and Murphy is rattled to realize it’s him. His voice - at least the voice he had at seven - though when he tries to say something else, nothing comes out. Instead, his head turns without his own efforts, and that’s when he sees her. 

A younger version of Raven is in the garden with him, for once dressed in something other than a bathing suit, yet her hair is still pulled back into two messy braids that fly out behind her as she runs to the finish line to join him. She’s wearing a pink top with ruffles at the bottom, and a darker pair of pink shorts. There’s dirt smudged all over her, including near her chin. She looks exactly like a miniaturized copy of herself as an adult, in spite of the scowl twisting her lips as she glares at him, probably annoyed that he won whatever race they’d concocted. 

“I guess it’s only fair,” Raven says after she catches her breath, her mouth breaking into a much more familiar smile. “I always beat you when we swim, so you should beat me when we run.”

“Maybe one day we can be in the Olympics together,” young Murphy suggests, and before Raven has a chance to say anything, the cottage door swings open and his grandmother comes out, carrying a tray piled with triangle sandwiches, cut up fruit and a small plate of cookies. 

“I’ve brought a picnic as your majesties have requested, but I’m going to ask you to eat your healthy lunch before devouring the cookies I’ve baked you. And I also suggest you wash up at the hose before you eat, since it looks like you’ve been digging in my garden with your bare hands.”

“Thanks, Grandma!”

“Thank you, Mrs. Murphy. This looks yummy!” 

Raven is much more polite in her appreciation, and Murphy wishes his younger self didn’t run off to the hose so quickly, wanting more time with his grandmother. That’s not in the cards though, and instead he figures out that he’s mostly just along for the ride, looking out of seven-year-old Murphy’s eyes but unable to speak or move on his own. The two children share their picnic spread out on a blanket near the meandering yellow rose that climbs up the cottage and over the front door, talking about buried treasure and whether Murphy’s dad and her uncle will take them out to the docks soon, so that they can visit the stray cats there and go fishing. 

It’s cute, the conversation between them, and he relaxes into the memory, noticing all the details as best he can since he isn’t completely certain what he should be looking for. The cookies taste like cinnamon and sugar, his favorites, and the strawberries are especially juicy. He doesn’t think either kid appreciates this kind of meal like they should, but that’s what kids do, and it’s surprisingly liberating to shovel everything into his mouth without regard for manners and napkins. 

“John, I want to tell you a secret.”

Murphy perks up at young Raven’s words, but his younger self seems to take it in stride. 

“Okay, what?”

“Do you know that _you’re_ my best friend?”

His slim shoulders lift in a quick shrug, not surprised in the least. “Well, yeah. You’re my best friend too.”

“Oh,” Raven answers, and adult Murphy can tell that she’s pleased. “I didn’t know that. You never said.”

“So? You never said before right now either.”

“That’s true. But I really mean it,” she says, scooting closer on the blanket until they’re sitting side by side. “You know, the end of the summer isn’t that far away, and you’ll go back to America and we won’t get to see each other every day anymore. I won’t get to see you at all for a while probably. Like months and months. I want to do something to make sure you remember me.”

“I’m never going to forget you,” young Murphy scoffs. “We’re best friends. And besides, I’ll ask my dad if we can come back next summer, so I’ll see you then.”

“I know, but will you let me anyway? I won’t do it unless you say it’s okay.”

“Do you want to cut our hands and become like blood brothers or something? Because if you do, I’ll have to go into the kitchen and take a knife without my grandmother seeing.”

Murphy wants to laugh. Apparently the kid version of him was up for a blood oath from the excited way he offers to go steal a knife, as well as the surge of enthusiasm he can feel building inside him at the idea. 

“No, gross!” Raven shrieks, definitely _not_ into that plan. “I can try something without us getting bloody. But I do need your hand.”

He gives it to her without hesitation, making Murphy realize that some things never change. Their hands look small when he stares down at them, and his is sticky with strawberry juice and faint traces of dirt under his fingernails even after he used the hose, but it’s clear that Raven is taking this seriously as she turns his hand palm up. 

“Close your eyes,” she instructs him, and he obeys without question. The fragrance of the rose behind them smells stronger with his lack of sight, and Raven’s fingers tickle his skin. There’s only childlike purity in her touch, and the kid he still is only feels anticipation mixed with a bit of skepticism at what will happen. 

At first nothing does, and his young self starts to get impatient and fidgety. But then there’s something there, a pricking under his skin - nothing painful, just...a shivery sensation. The older and younger versions of him are both so focused on it that neither of them senses Raven moving closer until her lips brush fleetingly against his as the tingling in his palm increases. His eyes fly open in surprise, but hers are squeezed tightly shut in concentration, and his older self experiences the decision-making process that his young mind makes, choosing to trust that his friend knows what she’s doing as his eyes slide closed again. The kiss only lasts another few seconds, completely innocent and sweetly clumsy as neither of them move and try to breathe, and then Raven pulls back, holding his hand up to her face. 

“I did it!” She exclaims, her voice jubilant. 

He looks at his palm, and yep, there it is. The spiral shaped scar is brand new, red and slightly puffy. 

“It didn’t hurt, did it?” Raven immediately shifts into concern when he doesn’t say anything at first. 

“No, it just tingles. Not in a bad way or anything,” he assures her as they both regard his hand. “It’s kind of cool looking, like the shells you give me. I like it.” His eyes flick to hers. “You didn’t say anything about kissing though.” 

Murphy knows the comment is primarily curious, not accusatory, and his younger self seems not to have minded the kiss at all. He also doesn’t seem remotely concerned that Raven actually _did_ do something magical to him. Maybe he was a lot more aware of Raven’s abilities as a child than he thought. 

“I didn’t know about it either,” Raven confides. “I just felt like I was supposed to do it once everything got started. I never kissed a boy before. Are you mad I kissed you without asking?”

“I guess it’s okay since it was you. Do you at least feel like I’m not going to forget you now?”

Raven nods her head vigorously, her braids sliding over her shoulders. 

“Good. Let’s go see if my grandma has more cookies then.”

The two of them rise off the picnic blanket together, and Murphy can feel the memory starting to fade, like his mind is becoming unlinked and wholly his own once more. He gets a last glimpse of the cottage and the yellow rose in all its glory, and then everything goes black again. 

* * *

When he opens his eyes, adult Raven is leaning over him while he’s laid out on the sand, much like she did in the cove when he rescued her, and again on this very beach when he thought they first met. He could get used to having her in this close position, her expression filled with concern for him. 

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he mutters, pulling himself up to sit next to her. Raven’s hand darts out, brushing the sand from his hair, but it’s over so quick he can’t savor it. He clears his throat, trying to sound more normal. 

“You took me right back where you intended. In the front garden. My grandmother made us a picnic, and I swear I could taste the cookies she baked like it was happening to me all over again. It was good to see her.”

“She was an excellent cook, I remember that. You know, Uncle Sinclair wouldn’t let me regularly visit your grandparents when you weren’t here, because he worried that we’d have to erase their memories too much and that they’d ask questions we couldn’t answer. But I saw them sometimes, in town or on the beach. I liked to watch for them because they were very happy together.” She glances over at him, pausing as if she’s thinking about whether to continue. “I was in Ireland when your grandmother died, and I went to her funeral. There were so many people and I thought you would be there too. When you didn’t show up, I reintroduced myself to your grandfather and shared my condolences and a few memories of Mrs. Murphy. He hugged me and started to talk about you, but then we got interrupted. We were teenagers then, and I thought there was plenty of time for me to see him again, so I returned to the Caribbean at the end of the summer and didn’t know for a while that he died later that year too.”

Murphy sighs, the good memories mingling with the bad. “My mother was an alcoholic. After my dad died it got really bad, and she stopped speaking to his parents or letting me talk to them on the phone. She never told me about their deaths, and she never would have let me come for any funerals. She said a lot of things that I thought were true, and then later… well, I found out they weren’t. I didn’t know what happened to my grandparents until after she died, and then I learned they had left her the cottage in a trust for me. I should’ve looked into things when I first moved out of her house, but they had been dead for years by then, and I incorrectly believed that they hadn’t made any effort to see me once my dad died.” He shakes his head in resignation. “My mother had a way of ruining a lot of things, but it makes me feel good to know that you were at my Grandma Kathleen’s funeral, and that you spoke to my grandfather when I couldn’t.”

Raven reaches for his hand, giving his fingers a gentle squeeze of support, the gesture warming more than just the skin she touches. 

“Did you see everything in the memory?”

“Yeah, you told me that you wanted to make sure I didn’t forget you, which I thought was a ridiculous suggestion even at seven, and then you did whatever magic it was and I had my scar.”

She tries to pull her hand out of his grasp but he doesn’t relinquish it, tightening his grip so she can’t get away. Instead she scowls and narrows her eyes, but he's not deterred. 

“Don’t be flippant, John! You saw what I did!”

“What? That you kissed me?” An incredulous note seeps into his tone. Is _that_ really what she’s been talking about this whole time?

“Yes, exactly that! I was supposed to be creating a bond between us based on trust and friendship, and instead I kissed you in the process and screwed everything up!”

“Hey, no. Don’t say it like that,” Murphy demands, not liking how rough she’s being on herself. “You were just a kid. You may not have known exactly what to do, but your intentions were good. And like I said before, it all worked out just fine.”

“No, it didn’t. After I gave you the scar, I was excited about it. Both that I could do it and that it meant you would remember me even when you were far away. I thought Uncle Sinclair would be proud of me… And in a way, he was. He was very impressed when he saw your scar, but I could tell he was upset when I told him exactly what I had done to make it happen. I didn’t understand then what the problem was, but I’ve had plenty of time in the last twenty-five years to think it over and come to a few conclusions.” The frustration vibrates off her so intensely it’s almost tangible. “The kiss added something else into the connection along with the extra emotions I was feeling, so I bonded myself to you - to a human - in ways that are much more complicated than just a mutual trust. And worse, I imposed my feelings onto you in the process.”

“Wait, hold on, I need a minute,” Murphy implores, confusion washing over him until he remembers what she had said to him after their kiss - just before she ran out of the cottage, whispering that it was her fault. _These aren’t your feelings, John_. Is that really what she believes, that he only kissed her then out of some misguided reflection of _her_ feelings from when they were kids? It doesn’t make any sense. 

“So you’re saying that you think because you kissed me - when we were _seven_ \- in the process of trying to make sure I remembered you, that means you forced me to feel more than just friendship for you?” God, even saying it out loud sounds ridiculous. 

“Yes!” Raven answers emphatically, her tone relieved, making him feel like a student who’s earned a gold star from the teacher. “It’s like...like we were supposed to sign a business contract together, and I brought all this...emotional baggage into it, and now the contract has a bunch of addendums and clauses and no one’s sure exactly _what_ kind of connection I got us into.”

“Okay, that’s...one option to describe this situation, and I can understand now why you see it this way, and even why your uncle was upset when he found out how it happened. Maybe that kiss and the so-called extra emotional baggage did complicate the connection, but as someone who literally just relived the entire event, I can tell you that the kiss you gave me was totally innocent. It was chaste and sweet between two kids who didn’t assign any sexual or romantic feelings to it, and neither one of us thought it was a big deal at the time, other than now that I’m thinking about it, it seems like it was the first kiss for both of us. We basically shrugged it off and went after more cookies. So you can let yourself off the hook if you think I only kissed you the other day because of _your_ feelings. That’s not what happened.”

“But-”

“No,” he interrupts, “that’s _not_ what happened.”

Raven drags her free hand through the sand, tracing delicate swirls in the fine grit, and her grin is wry when she speaks. “I’m not crazy, you know. I remember kissing you back then. I remember just about everything from that afternoon, because it was important to me. That’s why it was easy for me to single out that memory in your head so you could relive it. I didn’t kiss you in a romantic way or anything, I know that. For the most part, I thought boys were yucky when I was that age! You were the exception, I guess. But like I told you, there was love and gratitude in that kiss along with my feelings of friendship and trust. A _lot_ of feelings that had no business being put into what was essentially supposed to be a bond about loyalty. And yeah, while my feelings weren't romantic like adults feel, it wasn’t love like I felt for my family either.”

“I guess I just don’t see the problem with that,” he shrugs. “If you screwed up the connection by putting more feelings into it than you should’ve, I screwed it up too - by staying away from Ireland for so long, leaving the shells you gave me behind, being away from _you_. I promised I wouldn’t forget and then I did. But a part of me has never forgotten you, I know that much. My imagination has been filled with mermaid stories ever since that summer we met, and it didn’t just give me a career, writing about them. My stories saved me when my dad died and my mother drank herself to death.” 

He slides their still-clasped hands to rest in his lap, tugging her closer to him in the process. “In some way or another, Raven, you’ve always been with me, even if I didn’t realize it. I remembered a version of you for so long that I knew you weren’t a stranger even before I got my memories back. If that’s because we were best friends when we were kids and you accidentally kissed me when we should’ve just been shaking hands, I’m never going to wish otherwise.”

Raven laughs softly at the business comparison he circles back to, and the sound of it releases some of the weight that had settled in his chest; his worry that they wouldn’t be able to fix whatever was wrong. 

“It sounds so simple when you put it like that, and I guess I have had a lot of time to second-guess the entire situation,” she confesses, “but there were some other things over the years that helped to convince me that our connection was...more than what it should be.”

“Such as?”

“Well, my uncle has made this bond with a few humans in various places around the world; he’s marked them as people he trusts and he’s introduced me in case I ever needed their help or a safe place to go. And these relationships are very friendly, obviously - I could tell Uncle Sinclair enjoyed their company and felt safe and relaxed around them. There was nothing else to it though - completely platonic, nothing unrequited on anyone’s part. Most of them are married to other people even. But when I thought about you as the years passed, wondering how you were, _where_ you were, whether you ever thought about me and what it would be like to see you again...that felt different than what I saw with them.”

For the first time since they kissed in the cottage, he can feel his hopes rising, his mind latching onto the possibility that his feelings _aren’t_ one-sided after all. 

“Different how?”

“Oh, you know,” Raven murmurs nervously, her hand trembling in his as she watches him warily. “Like how in the back of my mind I always knew I’d find you one day, so whenever I met someone that I thought I could be interested in, it never worked out because a part of me wanted to wait and see what it was like when I saw you again.”

It feels like she’s squeezed all the air right out of him, rendering him breathless and dumbstruck, and it’s a struggle to not stare at her incredulously with his mouth gaping like a fish. God, what she does to him. 

He’s not sure how he manages to function after that, but a few brain cells start working again, and he sputters out a response, though he can’t say how much sense it makes. “I don’t know how it was for you, seeing me again after so long. But I can tell you without a single reservation that I am completely in love with you, and I don’t want to be without you in my life ever again even if friendship is all we can have. And before you say a word, I need you to know that there is no doubt in my mind or my heart that these are _my_ feelings - right now in the present and not some kind of echo of whatever we felt for each other when we were kids.”

The starlight that illuminates the beach around them intensifies the shimmer in Raven’s eyes as she studies his face, and it occurs to him with a sudden ache that he’ll never forget the way she looks at him in this moment. 

“So just to be very clear,” she clarifies, her voice quavering, “if I were to kiss you right now, you’d definitely want that?”

Utter relief flows through him as he yanks Raven into his chest, uncaring that they’re sprawled awkwardly next to each other in the sand. He needs her in his arms more than anything, and this time when their lips meet there’s no part of him that questions her feelings, content to surrender entirely to sensation and the certainty that she does want him in return. 

Eventually Raven pulls back from her perch in his lap, one warm hand curled around his neck and the other tugging in his hair to make him look up at her. She’s so beautiful, disheveled from his kisses with her cheeks pink from his stubble, and he can’t help it - he leans in to kiss her again until she laughs and puts a hand on his chest to deter him. 

“You’re so impatient!” 

Lucky for him she’s still laughing while she says it. 

“Can you blame me?” he mumbles, nipping along her chin. “I don’t want to stop kissing you for as long as you get to be out of the water tonight.”

“Not even long enough for me to tell you that I love you too?”

He stops in his efforts to drive her as crazy as she makes him, his eyes finding hers in the faint moonlight. 

“I love you, John Murphy. And I think I have for a really long time. I want you to take me back to your cottage now.”

Murphy does kiss her again then, wildly and thoroughly and with every bit of love he has for her in his heart. 

* * *

Hours later, Murphy abruptly wakes up from a vivid dream, his eyes blinking open with a sharp gasp as he takes in the darkened bedroom around him and the warm weight on his chest. Raven is snuggled under his chin, his movements and noise waking her too. 

“You okay?” she whispers, her voice raspy with sleep. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m sorry I woke you. But my dream just now was a different one. I remembered something new.”

She shifts in his arms to gaze up at him curiously, the sheet slipping down to her waist, momentarily distracting him from the images in the dream. 

“My eyes are up here, Mr. Murphy.” 

Those very eyes sparkle as she teases him, and he surprises her by tightening his arm around her, rolling them both until she’s beneath him. He sucks along her neck and clavicle until she’s sighing in capitulation, and then he rests his weight on his forearms, smoothing her hair back so he can fully see her face when he tells her. 

“I know where I hid The Queen’s Tear.”

A soft smile curves across her lips. “I knew you’d remember.”

“I should have known all along,” he says, rueful. “There’s been plenty of hints if I had just been paying attention.”

“Mmmm-hmmm,” she hums, decidedly uninterested.

He expects her to be excited, to almost want to go and get it immediately, but by the way her hands are starting to wander down his body, maybe he’s in for a surprise too.

“Buried treasure,” he grins. “That’s what I was thinking about when I decided the best place to put it. It’s under my grandmother’s rose bush. Maybe it had a little help surviving all these years after all.”

“That’s a good spot,” Raven agrees. “But I have to leave soon, so you can dig it up later. I’ll time things so I can stay the night next time. In the meantime though…”

He has a feeling life with Raven is always going to be full of surprises. In fact, he’s counting on it. Returning to Ireland is definitely the best choice he’s ever made. 

* * *

_Almost a month later_

“John, I don’t think you need to vacuum _again_. Everything looks wonderful - it’s just Uncle Sinclair. He’s not going to decide if he likes you based on whether every speck of dirt is off the front room rug.”

“Well obviously I don’t think that, but it is a bit nerve-wracking, you know, meeting him again after so many years. Especially when we’re going to tell him what our plans are.”

Raven sneaks in behind him and wraps her arms around his waist, dropping a loud kiss onto his cheek. “He’s going to love you almost as much as I do.”

That’s easy for her to say. Murphy doesn’t really have any family to introduce her to, so she hasn’t had to worry about making a good impression. Although in the time he’s been in Ireland, maybe he’s created something of a family unit himself, strangely enough. Mrs. Donovan adores Raven, and old Mr. Sullivan is completely enchanted by her too. Most of the time Murphy is lucky if he manages to slide onto the stool next to Raven down at the pub, since Mr. Sullivan seems to have some kind of radar and stealth speed that edges Murphy out most evenings they decide to show up there. Murphy pouted about it one night on the walk home, much to Raven’s amusement, and she mischievously informed him that Mr. Sullivan for certain had mermaid blood somewhere in his family tree because she could sense it. Apparently one of his ancestors had chosen to stay on land. Murphy could only grin. It suited the spry old man. 

And if he’s counting his unusual little found-family, he can’t forget Finn Collins. Ever since that night the two of them talked at the cliffs, Finn has been sober, and has held Murphy to the offer of company somewhat frequently. They get along surprisingly well, and it goes without saying that Finn is appreciative towards Raven whenever he sees her. Murphy has told her that Finn suspects what she is, but she hasn’t seemed concerned. If she’s willing to ignore it, then so is he. Which is good, considering that Thursday nights have sort of evolved into Finn showing up at the cottage for dinner every week and then the three of them usually play cards and watch bad movies until someone starts yawning. 

Bottom line, Raven has it easy. Meanwhile he’s about to reintroduce himself to the closest thing that Raven has ever had to a dad, and he’s nervous as all hell.

“Do you think he’s going to approve of everything we’ve decided?”

Raven ducks under his arm so she can face him, though she leaves her arms looped around his waist. 

“First of all, Uncle Sinclair wants me to be happy. And you make me happier than anything.” She goes up on her toes and kisses the tip of his nose. “So you’ve got that going for you. Second of all, like I told you a hundred times already, although it’s unusual, it’s definitely not unheard of for a mermaid to choose a human mate. So he’s not going to be holding that against you. And third of all, as much as I love Uncle Sinclair, even _if_ he didn’t like you - which he _will_ \- that’s not going to change how I feel about you.”

He lets out a long, drawn out moan, leaning in to encircle Raven in a tight hug. “I know you’re right. I just want everything to go perfectly.”

His eyes land on the coffee table over her shoulder, the iridescent stone in the center standing out against the rough, worn surface. They’ve made a lot of decisions in the time since he’d dug up The Queen’s Tear, exactly where he’d known it would be from the dream-memory. He really should have suspected it was there all along, considering the yellow rose and the rich, earthy scent of it had been such a constant through everything - his dreams, his memories, and even his present. 

Raven had cried when he’d given it back to her, but it was happy tears, she’d said, and the discovery of it had led to quite a few conversations about what it would mean for her to lead her mermaid clan and even whether she really thought the relic would ‘choose’ her as the leader. 

“Let me tell you a secret,” she had told him weeks before. “It’s something my mother told me a very long time ago. The Queen’s Tear is powerful, it’s true. But it doesn’t _choose_ the ruler of our clan, at least not exactly. The Queen’s Tear can read what’s in a person’s heart; can determine if they want the best for themselves or the best for the clan. And _that’s_ why I know that it’ll react when I do the ritual. Because I do want the best for the clan, and now I’m old enough and experienced enough to understand how to make that happen. I don’t want to rule forever, but I do think I’m the right person to take the clan in a better direction for right now, and when someone else shows up who cares enough to do a good job, then we can do the ritual again and I'll gladly step down if that's how it works out.”

Murphy knew she meant it, and it went a long way in reassuring him that she could be protected and safe when they left for the Caribbean. Not to mention that he’d be there with her every step of the way. He’d already sold his condo in Denver, arranging to have someone pack up what belongings he wanted and forward everything to the cottage in Ireland, since it was now going to be considered his primary residence. His agent had been taken aback at all the sudden changes Murphy was making in his life, but considering the rough outline of the new prequel he’d mailed to the literary office, Murphy thinks the man will find a way to deal. 

Raven had also told him about what it would mean for them to be together, if he chose to be with her. The specifics hadn’t honestly mattered to him - he was going to stay with Raven no matter what, but the reality seemed so simple. The two of them would go into the Caribbean water near where her clan lived and she would perform a ritual to take him as her mate, and then he would be able to breathe underwater like she could, and his legs would transform into a tail. He would never have her abilities or magic, but eventually and with practice he’d be able to transform between mermaid and human with ease, and they would ultimately be able to spend time together in and out of the water, though Raven had explained at first that they would need to be primarily underwater while he acclimated to his new body. 

She’d told him too, about the other choice. That as a mermaid she could choose to stay on land with a mate, eventually giving up her ability to be in the water to become more human, probably like Mr. Sullivan’s ancestor had done however long ago. He’d never for a minute entertained it. Even with the possibility of danger, Raven was meant to lead her clan. Her giving that up was never going to be an option. 

And besides, the way he sees it, he’s getting the best of both worlds. They’ll be mermaids for a chunk of the year in the warm waters of the Caribbean while Raven navigates a better life for her clan, and then they’ll be part-humans in Ireland when they can get away, and he’ll be able to write and take care of whatever necessary business he needs to handle in addition to getting to live out an incredible fantasy of finding out what life as a mermaid really is like. He’s insanely curious whether he’s gotten anything right in his books. Already he’s planned for Mrs. Donovan to be a caretaker for the cottage and garden, explaining that he and Raven will be on an extended honeymoon soon. 

Not that he’s used that term with Raven yet. It’s partially why he’s so nervous to meet Sinclair again. He wants to ask Sinclair for his blessing to marry Raven, and he’s hoping they can hold a small ceremony while they’re still in Ireland, before they leave. It’s practical, for one thing, since he has plenty of assets that need to go to Raven if anything should happen to him. And since they’ve already talked about children being a definite part of their future if they’re lucky, it makes sense for that too. But mostly Murphy just _wants_ to marry her, even with the mermaid ritual that’s essentially the same thing in her world. If all goes well, Sinclair will agree and they could be married by the end of the week, gathered together with their odd assortment of family and friends. He’s looking forward to it, and he’s already hidden away a pair of rings at the back of a drawer in their bedroom upstairs. 

The future offers a lot to be excited about, but in the meantime Murphy pulls Raven down with him onto the couch, arranging her in his lap so he can run his hands up and down her torso. 

“We do have some time to kill before your uncle gets here. I know a way you can calm me down,” he slyly suggests. 

“Is that so?” Raven slips her hands under his shirt and pops the button on his pants, the brilliant little temptress, and just when he thinks everything is going according to plan, she sits back up, an inquisitive expression on her face. 

“You know what I’ve been meaning to ask you?”

He groans at the interruption and she elbows him in the ribs. 

“Yes, my dearest?”

She rolls her eyes at his sarcasm but presses on. “I haven’t gotten to read your books yet, but I want to know a spoiler. Do the mermaids in your stories get a happy ending?”

It’s an unexpected question, and one he wants to answer thoughtfully, so he lets it settle into his head until he has the answer. “You know, sometimes it felt like it would take forever to get them there, but yes. In the end, the mermaids get the happiness they deserve.”

“I thought so,” Raven murmurs, and he gets a brief glimpse of her smile - his favorite smile - before her head tilts towards him. 

His heart skips, like usual, and then he gets to kiss the love of his life. Happy endings indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would love to hear what you thought! Comments & kudos always appreciated, and I hope everyone is staying safe & healthy!


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